Quote

I believe that we should read only those books that bite and sting us. If a book we are reading does not rouse us with a blow to the head, then why read it?

Franz Kafka

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
FrantiĊĦek Kafka
Kafka
Believe
Bites
Blow
Head
Books
Reading
Read
Rouse
Doe
Sting
Book
Bite

More quotes by Franz Kafka

Image
The Messiah will only come when he is no longer needed.
Franz Kafka
Image
He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.
Franz Kafka
Image
What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.
Franz Kafka
Image
The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speakes he lies.
Franz Kafka
Image
If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
Franz Kafka
Image
The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
Franz Kafka
Image
Because of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise] because of impatience we cannot return.
Franz Kafka
Image
One reads in order to ask questions
Franz Kafka
Image
The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.
Franz Kafka
Image
Isolation is a way to know ourselves.
Franz Kafka
Image
You too have weapons.
Franz Kafka
Image
There is a goal but no way what we call the way is mere wavering.
Franz Kafka
Image
You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart.
Franz Kafka
Image
Palestine needs earth, but it does not need lawyers.
Franz Kafka
Image
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty.
Franz Kafka
Image
My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
Franz Kafka
Image
We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
Franz Kafka
Image
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
Image
There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.
Franz Kafka
Image
I am more uncertain than I ever was I feel only the power of life. And I am senselessly empty.
Franz Kafka