Franz Kafka

'A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.'

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

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

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

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

'Evil is whatever distracts.'

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

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

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

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

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

'If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?'

'In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.'

'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.'

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

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

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

'My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.'

'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.'

'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.'

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

'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.'

'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.'



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