Quotes by Franz Kafka

He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.

How suicidal happiness can be!

Yes, they are hounding me.

Yours (now I'm even losing my name - it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)

Love is a drama of contradictions.

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.

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

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

First impressions are always unreliable.

In man’s struggle against the world, bet on the world.

Paths are made by walking.

I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable.

It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.

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

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even 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 ecsta

Everything that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.

I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

In your fighting and struggle, against the world, never bet against the world.

The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon.

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

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

There is a point of no return. This point has to be reached.

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.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all my time wanting things.

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

Self-control is something for which I do not strive, since achieving it presupposes control over one’s desires, and the control over one’s desires presupposes their direction, and the direction of one’s desires presupposes foresight, and the capacity for

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

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

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

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing in of what is apparently at hand.

It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free.

It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.

Every man lives behind bars, which he carries within himself.

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.

Evil is whatever distracts.

You are free, and that is why you are lost.

I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

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

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

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked along.

I am free and that is why I am lost.

There is infinite hope, but not for us.

In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world.

I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

The meaning of life is that it stops.

I am a cage, in search of a bird.