Quote

Two tasks at the beginning of your life: to narrow your orbit more and more, and ever and again to check whether you are not in hiding somewhere outside your orbit.

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
Life
Checks
Tasks
Somewhere
Beginning
Outside
Orbit
Whether
Narrow
Two
Hiding
Ever
Check

More quotes by Franz Kafka

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What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.
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The cruelty of death lies in the fact that it brings the real sorrow of the end, but not the end. The greatest cruelty of death: an apparent end causes a real sorrow. Our salvation is death, but not this one.
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There are questions we could not get past if we were not set free from them by our very nature.
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
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Isolation is a way to know ourselves.
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One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.
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Because of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise] because of impatience we cannot return.
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April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.
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In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
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A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
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The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.
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The man in ecstasy and the man drowning: both raise their arms.
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There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.
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Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.
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He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.
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What am I doing here in this endless winter?
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You're not cross with me, though? he said. She pulled her hand away and answered, No, no, I'm never cross with anyone.
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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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I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.
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A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
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