Franz Kafka Quotes

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

One day, a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy.

Writers speak stench.

Because of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise]; because of impatience we cannot return.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

I can't feel a thing; All mournful petal storms are dancing inside the very private spring of my head.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment by that name in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session.

What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.

Writer speaks a stench.

It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

No one can crave what truly harms him.

This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.

Written kisses never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the way.

We need the books that affect us like a disaster

What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.

The state we find ourselves in is sinful quite independent of guilt.

Love has as few problems as a motor car. The only problems are the driver, the passengers, and the road.

All science is methodolgy with regard to the Absolute. Therefore, there need be no fear of the unequivocally methodological. It isa husk, but not more than everything except the One.

To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.

What do I have in common with Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself.

No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.

Every dog has like me the impulse to question, and I have like every dog the impulse not to answer.

To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.

There is a down-and-outness under true knowledge and a childlike happy arising from it.

One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark

The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

I can once more carry on a conversation with myself, and don't stare so into complete emptiness. Only in this way is there any possibility of improvement for me.

Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man.

Utterance does not in principle mean a weakening of conviction--that would not be anything to be deplored--but a weakness of conviction.

You, who can't do anything, think you can bring off something like that? How can you even dare to think about it? If you were capable of it, you certainly wouldn't be in need of it.

If this is what you came for, then I didn't send for you. Kafka (note to himself in journal)

There can be knowledge of the diabolical, but no belief in it, for more of the diabolical than there is does not exist.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

It would be very unjust to say that you deserted me, but that I was deserted, and sometimes terribly so, is true.

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.

Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith.

What is written is merely the dregs of experience.

Evil is the starry sky of the Good.

What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.

When one has once accepted and absorbed Evil, it no longer demands to be believed.