Franz Kafka Quotes - Page 15

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• 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

  Eye, Discovery, Disappear

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

  7 Copy quote

• A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

  Franz Kafka

  Views, Woods, Boring

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

  13 Copy quote

• "Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said.

  Franz Kafka

  Sad, Midnight, Want

  Franz Kafka “1914-1923. Tr. by Martin Greenberg, with the co-operation of Hannah Arendt”

  10 Copy quote

• The true way goes over a line that, rather than spanning heights, is hardly above the ground. It appears more decidedly to make one trip than to be walked along.

  Franz Kafka

  Lines, Height, Way

  4 Copy quote

• There are two cardinal human sins out of which all others derive, deviate, and dissipate: impatience and lassitude (or perhaps nonchalance). On account of impatience they are driven out of paradise; on account of lassitude or nonchalance they do not return. Perhaps, however, only one main sense of sin is given: impatience. On account of impatience they are driven out, on account of impatience they do not turn back.

  Franz Kafka

  Two, Nonchalance, Paradise

  6 Copy quote

• We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.

  Franz Kafka

  Wings, Tears, Literature

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

  4 Copy quote

• The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

  Franz Kafka

  Home, Doors, Metamorphosis

  Franz Kafka, Stanley Corngold (1981). “The Metamorphosis”, Bantam Classics

  13 Copy quote

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

  Franz Kafka

  Biblical, Darkness, Green

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

  7 Copy quote

• One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.

  Franz Kafka

  Strong, Mean, Eye

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

  5 Copy quote

• It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

  Franz Kafka

  Law, Names, Judgement

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

  89 Copy quote

• In a certain sense you deny the existence of this world. You explain life as a state of rest, a state of rest in motion.

  Franz Kafka

  Life, World, Deny

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

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Franz Kafka

  Tired, Sleep, Effort

  Franz Kafka (1949). “The Diaries of Franz Kafka: 1914-1923. Tr. by Martin Greenberg, with the co-operation of Hannah Arendt”, Schocken

  7 Copy quote

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

  Franz Kafka

  Literature, Term, Representatives

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

  7 Copy quote

• If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.

  Franz Kafka

  Climbing, Hiking, Tower Of Babel

  Franz Kafka (2016). “Konundrum: Selected Prose of Franz Kafka”, p.354, Archipelago

  84 Copy quote

• One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

  Franz Kafka

  Lying, Opportunity

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

  6 Copy quote

• What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?

  Franz Kafka

  Morning, Fate, Men

  "The Metamorphosis". Book by Franz Kafka, 1915.

  4 Copy quote

• If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.

  Franz Kafka

  Happiness, Suicide, Book

  6 Copy quote

• Evil is the radiation of the human consciousness in certain transitional positions. It is not actually the sensual world that is amere appearance; what is so is the evil of it, which, admittedly, is what constitutes the sensual world in our eyes.

  Franz Kafka

  Eye, Evil, Sensual

  4 Copy quote

• True undoubting is the teacher's part, continual undoubting the part of the pupil.

  Franz Kafka

  Teacher, Students, Pupils

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

  4 Copy quote

• Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

  Franz Kafka

  Hype, Sensual, Elements

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

  84 Copy quote

• Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.

  Franz Kafka

  Art, Truth, Light

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

  6 Copy quote

• Nervous states of the worst sort control me without pause. Everything that is not 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 feel as though I were maliciously being attacked.

  Franz Kafka

  Hate, Feelings, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Franz Kafka

  Self, Literature, World

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

  7 Copy quote

• You too have weapons.

  Franz Kafka

  Weapons

  Franz Kafka (1979). “The Basic Kafka”, p.268, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• This noble body, equipped with everything necessary, almost to the point of bursting, also appeared to carry freedom around with it.

  Franz Kafka

  Noble, Body, Bursting

  Franz Kafka (2016). “Collected Works (Complete Editions: The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, The Trial, ...)”, p.53, Franz Kafka

  4 Copy quote

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