Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience.
Because of impatience we are driven out of Paradise;
because of impatience we cannot return.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Patience
All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Patience
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Fight, Fighting
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.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Suffering, Humanity
A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Books, Book
A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Understanding
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Writing
Human judgment of human actions is true and void , that is to say, first true and then void…. The judgment of the word is true, the judgment in itself is void…. Only he who is a party can really judge, but as a party he cannot judge. Hence it follows that there is no possibility of judgment in the world, only a glimmer of it.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Judging, Judgment
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.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Imagination, Solitude, Experience
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution, Bureaucracy
The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life—the terror of art.
—Franz Kafka
All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Questions
No sooner is it a little calmer with me than it is almost too calm, as though I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Unhappiness, Identity, Self-Knowledge, Happiness
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
Topics: Education
One must not cheat anybody, not even the world of one’s triumph.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Cheating
My “fear” is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Part of The Whole, Fear
A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Belief
There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Achieving
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Aging, Beauty, Youth, Time
Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.
—Franz Kafka
For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’ s every word.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Words
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Books
In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Happiness
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Goals
My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Judging, Judgment, Judges
Intellectual labor tears a man out of society. A craft, on the other hand, leads him toward men.
—Franz Kafka
May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Kisses, Kissing
Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
—Franz Kafka
Topics: Life, Living, Nature
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Austrian Novelist
- Viktor Frankl Austrian Psychiatrist
- Rainer Maria Rilke Austrian Poet
- Franz Grillparzer Austrian Dramatist
- Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-born British Philosopher
- Ludwig von Mises Austrian Economist
- Alfred Adler Austrian Psychiatrist
- Wilhelm Stekel Austrian Physician
- Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich Austrian Political leader
- Bernard Malamud American Novelist
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