Franz Kafka Quotes

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

Whatever, Believing, Create

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.
Franz Kafka

Wait, Choice, Leave

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.
Franz Kafka

Loneliness, Through, Cannot

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

Revolution, Behind, Leaves

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

Beauty, Old, Anyone

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

Die, Wish, Beginning

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

Food, Time, Long

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

Book, Sea, Within

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

Life, Down, Cannot

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

Thought, Until, Action

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

Point, Longer, Turning

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

Nature, Yourself, Free

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.
Franz Kafka

Liberty, Away, Opinion

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

God, Nuts, Crack

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

Spiritual, Means, Point

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.
Franz Kafka

Fire, Old, Road

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.
Franz Kafka

After, Fresh, Vanity

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

Mean, Made, Progress

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

Time, Read, Spend

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

Book, Sea, Within

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

Beauty, Happy, Old

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

Great, Yourself, Rather

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

Misfortune, Quixote

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.
Franz Kafka

Free, Often, Chains

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

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Biography

Nationality: Austrian

Born: July 3, 1883

Died: June 3, 1924

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Find on Amazon: Franz Kafka

Cite this Page: Citation

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