Quotes By Franz Kafka

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

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

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

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

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Evil is whatever distracts.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Dread of night. Dread of not-night.

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.