Franz Kafka Quotes - Page 15

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• 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

• 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

• For everything outside the phenomenal world, language can only be used allusively, but never even approximately in a comparative way, since, corresponding as it does to the phenomenal world, it is concerned only with property and its relations.

  Franz Kafka

  Perception, Way, Doe

  Franz Kafka, Malcolm Pasley (1973). “Shorter works [of] Franz Kafka”, Harvill Secker

  5 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• It is strange how little sharpsightedness women possess; they only notice whether they please, then whether they arouse pity, and finally, whether you look for compassion from them. That is all; come to think of it, it may even be enough, generally speaking.

  Franz Kafka

  Women, Compassion, Thinking

  5 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

• 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

• Sometimes I'd like to stuff all Jews (myself included) into the drawer of a laundry basket. then open it to see if they've suffocated

  Franz Kafka

  Stuff, Sometimes, Laundry

  28 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl 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 come with me.

  Franz Kafka

  Hate, Moving, Men

  6 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

• Going to pieces. To go to pieces so pointlessly and unnecessarily.

  Franz Kafka

  Pieces

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

  4 Copy quote

• His biggest misgiving came from his concern about the loud crash that was bound to occur and would probably create, if not terror, at least anxiety behind all the doors. But that would have to be risked.

  Franz Kafka

  Doors, Anxiety, Metamorphosis

  Franz Kafka (1972). “The Metamorphosis”

  9 Copy quote

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