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The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

Franz Kafka

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Franz Kafka
Age: 41 †
Born: 1883
Born: July 3
Died: 1924
Died: July 3
Aphorist
Claims Adjuster
Diarist
Fabulist
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Translator
Writer
Praha
František Kafka
Kafka
Literature
Free
Spirit
Ceases
Cease
Becomes
Support

More quotes by Franz Kafka

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The Diabolical sometimes assumes the aspect of the Good, or even embodies itself completely in its form. If this remains concealedfrom me, I am of course defeated, for this Good is more tempting than the genuine Good.
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There can be knowledge of the diabolical, but no belief in it, for more of the diabolical than there is does not exist.
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The true way goes over a line that, rather than spanning heights, is hardly above the ground. It appears more decidedly to make one trip than to be walked along.
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The limited circle is pure.
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Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.
Franz Kafka
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The man in ecstasy and the man drowning - both throw up their arms. The first to signify harmony, the second to signify strife with the elements.
Franz Kafka
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Celibacy and suicide are a similar levels of understanding, suicide and a martyr's death not so by any means, perhaps marriage and a martyr's death.
Franz Kafka
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Human nature, essentially changeable, as unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it rends everything asunder, the wall, the bonds, and its very self.
Franz Kafka
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Towards the avoidance of a piece of verbal confusion: What is intended to be actively destroyed must first of all have been firmly grasped what crumbles away crumbles away, but cannot be destroyed.
Franz Kafka
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Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.
Franz Kafka
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Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair.
Franz Kafka
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I never wish to be easily defined.
Franz Kafka
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He is a free and secure citizen of the world because he is on a chain that is long enough to allow him access to all parts of the earth, and yet not so long that he could be swept over the edge of it.
Franz Kafka
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Faith, like a guillotine. As heavy, as light.
Franz Kafka
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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
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The observer of the soul cannot penetrate into the soul, but there doubtless is a margin where he comes into contact with it. Recognition of this contact is the fact that even the soul does not know of itself. Hence it must remain unknown. That would be sad only if there were anything apart from the soul, but there is nothing else.
Franz Kafka
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Don't bend don't water it down don't try to make it logical don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
Franz Kafka
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Sometimes I'd like to stuff all Jews (myself included) into the drawer of a laundry basket. then open it to see if they've suffocated
Franz Kafka
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A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night.
Franz Kafka
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Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain permanently hidden from him. One of the ways in which this hiddenness can express itself is through faith in a personal god.
Franz Kafka