Franz Kafka Quotes

220 Sourced Quotes

The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day.

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

Franz Kafka
There is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise; because of impatience we cannot return.

Franz Kafka
The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

Franz Kafka
Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.

Franz Kafka
From the true antagonist illimitable courage is transmitted to you.

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

Franz Kafka
Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.

Franz Kafka
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

Franz Kafka
There's no quiet place here on earth for our love, not in the village and not anywhere else, so I picture a grave, deep and narrow, in which we embrace as if clamped together, I bury my face against you, you yours against me, and no one will ever see us.

Franz Kafka
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.

Franz Kafka
Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man, and this immediately, though, of course, only in the case of complete and permanent humility. It can do this because it is the true language of prayer, at once adoration and the firmest of unions. 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.

Franz Kafka
The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment. An attempt to falsify the actuality of knowledge, to regard knowledge as a goal still to be reached.

Franz Kafka
Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of the Judgment by that name; in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session.

Franz Kafka
Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

Franz Kafka
The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.

Franz Kafka
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Franz Kafka
How much my life has changed, and yet how unchanged it has remained at bottom! When I think back and recall the time when I was still a member of the canine community, sharing in all its preoccupations, a dog among dogs, I find on closer examination that from the very beginning I sensed some discrepancy, some little maladjustment, causing a slight feeling of discomfort which not even the most decorous public functions could eliminate; more, that sometimes, no, not sometimes, but very often, the mere look of some fellow dog of my own circle that I was fond of, the mere look of him, as if I had just caught it for the first time, would fill me with helpless embarrassment and fear, even with despair.

Franz Kafka
Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.

Franz Kafka
Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.

Franz Kafka
If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything

Franz Kafka
A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

Franz Kafka
It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

Franz Kafka
My grandfather used to say: Life is astoundingly short. To me, looking back over it, life seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how a young man can decide to ride over to the next village without being afraid that -not to mention accidents- even the span of a normal happy life may fall far short of the time needed for such a journey.

Franz Kafka
The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life-the terror of art.

Franz Kafka
I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.

Franz Kafka
Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice.

Franz Kafka
"Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.

Franz Kafka
Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.

Franz Kafka
All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.

Franz Kafka