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

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

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

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

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 Quote

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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 Quote

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

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

Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Evil is whatever distracts.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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

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

Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.
- Franz Kafka Quote

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?
- Franz Kafka Quote

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
- Franz Kafka Quote

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.
- Franz Kafka Quote

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.
- Franz Kafka Quote

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.
- Franz Kafka Quote

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
- Franz Kafka Quote

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

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

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 Quote

No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.
- Franz Kafka Quote

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Religions get lost as people do.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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

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

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
- Franz Kafka Quote

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
- Franz Kafka Quote

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
- Franz Kafka Quote

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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

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.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.
- Franz Kafka Quote

We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.
- Franz Kafka Quote

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.
- Franz Kafka Quote

We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the tree of life.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.
- Franz Kafka Quote

Writers speak stench.
- Franz Kafka Quote

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 Quote

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