Quotes by Franz Kafka

"One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer."

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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 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."

"What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself."

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

"Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it."

"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."

"It's often safer to be in chains than to be free."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."

"The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum."

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

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

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

"We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt."

"Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so."

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

"The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc."

"Writers speak stench."

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza."

"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable."

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

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

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