Quotes By Franz Kafka

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.

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.

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.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

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

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.

Writers speak stench.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

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

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

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

My "fear" is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

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.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.