Franz Kafka Quotes - Page 11

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• Officials are highly educated but one-sided; in his own department an official can grasp whole trains of thought from a single word, but let him have something from another department explained to him ... he won't understand a word of it.

  Franz Kafka

  Train Of Thought, Educated, Single Word

  Franz Kafka, Willa Muir, Edwin Muir (1958). “The castle”, Schocken

  7 Copy quote

• You see, I have only such a fugitive awareness of things around me that I always feel they were once real and are now fleeting away.

  Franz Kafka

  Real, Fleeting, Awareness

  Franz Kafka (2009). “The Metamorphosis: And Other Stories”, p.14, Schocken

  7 Copy quote

• The tremendous world I have inside my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.

  Franz Kafka

  Pieces, World, Torn

  Franz Kafka (1965). “The Diaries of Franz Kafka”

  16 Copy quote

• The history of the world, as it is written and handed down by word of mouth, often fails us completely; but man's intuitive capacity, though it often misleads, does lead, does not ever abandon one.

  Franz Kafka

  Love, Men, Doe

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

  9 Copy quote

• At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark?

  Franz Kafka

  Lips, Amazed, Remarks

  Franz Kafka “Franz Kafka Vol 2”, Lulu.com

  6 Copy quote

• Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

  Franz Kafka

  Spiritual, Mean, Self

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Ignorance, Law

  Franz Kafka (1983). “The Penguin complete novels of Franz Kafka”

  8 Copy quote

• it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.' 'A melancholy conclusion,' said K. 'It turns lying into a universal principle.

  Franz Kafka

  Lying, Principles, Melancholy

  Franz Kafka (1983). “The Penguin complete novels of Franz Kafka”

  4 Copy quote

• Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.

  Franz Kafka

  Kissing, Drunk, Way

  Franz Kafka, Nahum Norbert Glatzer (1974). “I am a memory come alive: autobiographical writings”, Schocken

  11 Copy quote

• A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night.

  Franz Kafka

  Winter, Dark, Night

  4 Copy quote

• Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

  Franz Kafka

  Song, Silence, Singing

  Franz Kafka (1988). “The Complete Stories”, Schocken

  66 Copy quote

• Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

  Franz Kafka

  Moving, Knowing, People

  Franz Kafka (1983). “The Penguin complete novels of Franz Kafka”

  18 Copy quote

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

  Franz Kafka

  Cheating, Victory, World

  Franz Kafka (1979). “The Basic Kafka”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

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

  Franz Kafka

  Spring, Dancing, Storm

  9 Copy quote

• German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.

  Franz Kafka

  Mother, Hands, Movement

  Franz Kafka (2013). “Letters to Milena”, p.26, Schocken

  9 Copy quote

• Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

  Franz Kafka

  Educational, Tyrants, Two

  Franz Kafka (2013). “Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors”, p.357, Schocken

  13 Copy quote

• So then you’re free?’ ‘Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.

  Franz Kafka

  Said, Worthless

  Franz Kafka (2012). “Amerika”, p.133, Schocken

  4 Copy quote

• One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

  Franz Kafka

  Suffering, Diaries, Clarity

  Franz Kafka, Nahum Norbert Glatzer (1974). “I am a memory come alive: autobiographical writings”, Schocken

  18 Copy quote

• They were offered the choice between becoming kings or the couriers of kings. The way children would, they all wanted to be couriers. Therefore there are only couriers who hurry about the world, shouting to each other - since there are no kings - messages that have become meaningless. They would like to put an end to this miserable life of theirs but they dare not because of their oaths of service.

  Franz Kafka

  Kings, Children, Choices

  Franz Kafka (1961). “Parables and paradoxes: in German and English”

  11 Copy quote

• and in that recurring dream, I found myself trapped in some sort of gigantic game of which I was unfamiliar with the rules; lost in a labyrinthine town of dark and damp, criss-crossing streets, ambiguous characters of uncertain authority having no idea of why I was there nor what I had to do, and where the first sign of the beginning of understanding was the wish to die.

  Franz Kafka

  Dream, Character, Dark

  11 Copy quote

• The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

  Franz Kafka

  Evil, Whiplash, Motive

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

  6 Copy quote

• The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.

  Franz Kafka

  Unions, Common, Individual

  Franz Kafka (1954). “Wedding preparations in the country: and other posthumous prose writings. With notes by Max Brod”

  12 Copy quote

• A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.

  Franz Kafka

  Book, Reading, Ice

  46 Copy quote

• Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one’s ears and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall.

  Franz Kafka

  Wall, Mean, Night

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

  23 Copy quote

• One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.

  Franz Kafka

  Fighting, Bottom, Ifs

  "The Castle". Book by Franz Kafka, 1926.

  10 Copy quote

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