KAFKA

stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove
you wrong. Remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked. The tru
th and the lie are not "sort of" the same thing.
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your o
wn soul according to the fashion
All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else
If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it woul
d have been permitted.
All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the do
g
I usually solve problems by letting them devour me
No matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare thro
ugh the cloth, he still won't see a thing.
He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn't yet lived
Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way b
y the ghosts.
Leopards break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry; it keeps hap
ning; in the end, it can be calculated in advance and is incorporated into the ritu
The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot beco
me man.
What am I doing here in this endless winter?
But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now t
o come to a horrifying end?
One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slip
s back into the darkness of the Ark
Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would beco
me parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.
He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.
We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also
because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is
sinful, irrespective of guilt.
The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appear
ance of being infinite
Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of es
cape, again, are as many as hiding places.
Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
L'ternit, c'est long ... surtout vers la fin.
All language is but a poor translation.
I am in chains. Don't touch my chains
It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.
The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become m
aster, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the mas
ter's whiplash
We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree
of Life separates Him from us.
In your struggle against the world, bet on the world
There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us
A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die
The meaning of life is that it stops
They say ignorance is bliss.... they're wrong
There is an abundance of hope, but none for us
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached
El hombre martirizado por sus demonios se venga ciegamente en su prjimo
You can choose to be free , but it's last decision you'll ever make
Some deny the existence of misery by pointing to the sun; he denies the existenc
e of the sun by pointing to misery
Most men are not wicked... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something y
ou are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding
back is the one suffering you could avoid
God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them
I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop th
e Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the ti
me being.
Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible, but that alone doesn't make i
t true
Nervous states of the worst sort control me without pause. Everything that is no
t literature bores me and I hate it. I lack all aptitude for family life except,
at best, as an observer. I have no family feeling and visitors make me almost f
eel as though I were maliciously being attacked
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You cha
nge direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjust
s. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just befo
re dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, som
ething that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you.
They were offered the choice between becoming kings or the couriers of kings. Th
e way children would, they all wanted to be couriers. Therefore there are only c
ouriers who hurry about the world, shouting to each other - since there are no k
ings - messages that have become meaningless. They would like to put an end to t
his miserable life of theirs but they dare not because of their oaths of service
.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyo
ne, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposi
te
Marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come, supporting th
em in this insecure world, and perhaps even guiding them a little, is, I am conv
inced, the utmost a human being can succeed in doing at all
Es perfectamente imaginable que el esplendor de la vida est dispuesto, siempre en
toda plenitud, alrededor de cada uno, pero cubierto de un velo, en las profundi
dades, invisible muy lejos. Sin embargo est ah, no hostil, no a disgusto, no sordo
, viene si uno lo llama con la palabra correcta, por su nombre correcto, Es la e
sencia de la magia, que no crea, sino llama.
Last night I dreamt about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, al
l I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Final
ly somehow you caught fire.
These are the seductive voices of the night; the Sirens, too, sang that way. It
would be doing them an injustice to think that they wanted to seduce; they knew
they had claws and sterile wombs, and they lamented this aloud. They could not h
elp it if their laments sounded so beautiful
One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. Thi
s life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wan
ting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new o
ne, which one will only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of
belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor,
look at the prisoner and say: "This man is not to be locked up again, He is to c
ome with me.