Franz Kafka quotes - page 4

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency. (Franz Kafka)
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
I like to make use of what I know.
Franz Kafka
Anyone who believes cannot experience miracles. By day one does not see any stars. Anyone who does miracles says: I cannot let goof the earth.
Franz Kafka
There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.
Franz Kafka
Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.
Franz Kafka
The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.
Franz Kafka
What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.
Franz Kafka
Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.
Franz Kafka
Ours is a lost generation, it may be, but it is more blameless than those earlier generations.
Franz Kafka
Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie. (Franz Kafka)
There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence.
Franz Kafka
It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.
Franz Kafka
... 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. In the Cathedral.
Franz Kafka
The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment. An attempt to falsify the actuality of knowledge, to regard knowledge as a goal still to be reached.
Franz Kafka
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
Franz Kafka
From the true antagonist, illimitable courage is transmitted to you.
Franz Kafka
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous bug...
Franz Kafka
sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.
Franz Kafka
I'm thinking only of my illness and my health, though both, the first as well as the second, are you.
Franz Kafka
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. (Franz Kafka)
I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man.
Franz Kafka
Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.
Franz Kafka
Writing [is] a form of prayer.
Franz Kafka
If this is what you came for, then I didn't send for you. Kafka (note to himself in journal)
Franz Kafka