Quotes By Franz Kafka

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

Writers speak stench.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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