Franz Kafka Quotes

Life is hard, the earth stubborn, science rich in knowledge but poor in practical results.

~ Franz Kafka

Isolation is a way to know ourselves.

~ Franz Kafka

You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind-- for everyone wants to live as long as he is alive-- even the degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing.Writing that springs from the surface of existence-- when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up-- is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.

~ Franz Kafka

People who walk across dark bridges, past saints,with dim, small lights.Clouds which move across gray skiespast churcheswith towers darkened in the dusk.One who leans against granite railinggazing into the evening waters,His hands resting on old stones.

~ Franz Kafka

If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive.

~ Franz Kafka

I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them.

~ Franz Kafka

Could K. represent the congregation all by himself? What if he had been a stranger merely visiting the church? That was more or less his position.

~ Franz Kafka

Other opportunities arise from time to time that almost don't accord with the overall situation, opportunities whereby a word, a glance, a sigh of trust may achieve more than a lifetime of exhausting endeavour.

~ Franz Kafka

Incidentally, it’s easy to write prescriptions, but difficult to come to an understanding with people.

~ Franz Kafka

One hears a great many things, true, but can gather nothing definite.

~ Franz Kafka

Guilt is never to be doubted.

~ Franz Kafka

All right then, I’ll be mad at you on this score, which incidentally is no great misfortune, as things balance out quite well if there’s a little anger for you lurking in one corner of my heart.

~ Franz Kafka

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

~ Franz Kafka

A man might find for a moment that he was unable to work, but that's exactly the right time to remember his past accomplishments and to consider that later on, when the obstacles has been removed, he's bound to work all the harder and more efficiently.

~ Franz Kafka

Herr Kafka, essen Sie keine Eier. (As one and only piece of dialog K recalls from his meeting with Rudolf Steiner - Mr. Kafka don't eat eggs.

~ Franz Kafka

The books we need are of the kind that act upon us like a misfortune,that makes us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide,lost in a forest remote from all human habitation

~ Franz Kafka

Am I to leave this world as a man who shies away from all conclusions?

~ Franz Kafka

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

~ Franz Kafka

Since there was nothing at all I was certain of, since I needed to be provided at every instant with a new confirmation of my existence, since nothing was in my very own, undoubted, sole possession, determined unequivocally only by me — in sober truth a disinherited son — naturally I became unsure even of the thing nearest to me, my own body.

~ Franz Kafka

Judgement does not come suddenly, the proceedings gradually merge into the judgement.

~ Franz Kafka

It occurs to me that I really can't remember your face in any precise detail. Only the way you walked away through the tables in the café, your figure, your dress, that I still see.

~ Franz Kafka

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

~ Franz Kafka

One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.

~ Franz Kafka

I am so miserable, there are so many questions, I can see no way out and am so wretched and feeble that I could lie forever on the sofa and keep opening and closing my eyes without knowing the difference.

~ Franz Kafka

Intrusive, thoughtless people! said K. as he turned back into the room. The supervisor may have agreed with him, at least K. thought that was what he saw from the corner of his eye. But it was just as possible that he had not even been listening as he had his hand pressed firmly down on the table and seemed to be comparing the length of his fingers.

~ Franz Kafka

Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye even to recognize it after that.

~ Franz Kafka

He had probably been thrown out of a wine shop, and it hadn't quite dawned on him yet.

~ Franz Kafka

People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.

~ Franz Kafka

I am a very unhappy human being and you, dearest, simply had to be summoned to create an equilibrium for all this misery.

~ Franz Kafka

I believe that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book does not rouse us with a blow then why read it?

~ Franz Kafka

I see, these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.

~ Franz Kafka

You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart, imagine my heartbeat when you are in this state.

~ Franz Kafka

Don't be too hasty, don't take somebody else's opinion without testing it.

~ Franz Kafka

But what now if all the peace, the comfort, the contentment were to come to a horrible end?

~ Franz Kafka

Nothing, nothing, the whole long day, nothing.

~ Franz Kafka

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

~ Franz Kafka

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

~ Franz Kafka

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.

~ Franz Kafka

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

~ Franz Kafka

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

~ Franz Kafka