Quotes By Franz Kafka

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

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

Religions get lost as people do.

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.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair.

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

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

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

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.

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

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