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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more.

  Franz Kafka

  Animal, Compassion, Vegetarianism

  19 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

• I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.

  Franz Kafka

  Education, Time, Laughter

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

  14 Copy quote

• Expulsion from Paradise is in its main aspect eternal: that is to say, although expulsion from Paradise is final, and life in theworld unavoidable, the eternity of the process (or, expressed in temporal terms, the eternal repetition of the process) nevertheless makes it possible not only that we might remain in Paradise permanently, but that we may in fact be there permanently, no matter whether we know it here or not.

  Franz Kafka

  Time, May, Might

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

  7 Copy quote

• In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

  Franz Kafka

  Literature, Goodness, Certain

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

  7 Copy quote

• Either the world is so tiny or we are enormous; in either case, we fill it completely.

  Franz Kafka

  World, Tiny, Cases

  5 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

• Leop­ards break in­to the tem­ple and drink all the sac­ri­fi­cial ves­sels dry; it keeps hap­pen­ing; in the end, it can be cal­cu­lat­ed in ad­vance and is in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the rit­ual.

  Franz Kafka

  Dry, Rats, Drink

  Franz Kafka (2015). “Aphorisms”, p.20, Schocken

  13 Copy quote

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

  Franz Kafka

  Positive, Depression, World Suffering

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

  7 Copy quote

• The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

  Franz Kafka

  Fire, Literature, Want

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

  12 Copy quote

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