Quote

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

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
František Kafka
Kafka
Reading
Frozen
Read
Literary
Doe
Ice
Must
Wake
Work
Sea
Inside
Break
Literature

More quotes by Franz Kafka

Image
There is a goal but no way what we call the way is mere wavering.
Franz Kafka
Image
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.
Franz Kafka
Image
I never wish to be easily defined.
Franz Kafka
Image
The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you.
Franz Kafka
Image
I’m doing badly, I’m doing well whichever you prefer.
Franz Kafka
Image
They say ignorance is bliss.... they're wrong
Franz Kafka
Image
If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?
Franz Kafka
Image
Anyone who loves his neighbor within the limits of the world is doing no more and no less injustice than someone who loves himself within the limits of the world.
Franz Kafka
Image
There will be no proof that I ever was a writer.
Franz Kafka
Image
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
Image
Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.
Franz Kafka
Image
All science is methodolgy with regard to the Absolute. Therefore, there need be no fear of the unequivocally methodological. It isa husk, but not more than everything except the One.
Franz Kafka
Image
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Franz Kafka
Image
How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?
Franz Kafka
Image
My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
Franz Kafka
Image
It is strange how little sharpsightedness women possess they only notice whether they please, then whether they arouse pity, and finally, whether you look for compassion from them. That is all come to think of it, it may even be enough, generally speaking.
Franz Kafka
Image
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
Image
The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.
Franz Kafka
Image
All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.
Franz Kafka
Image
We live in an age which is so possessed by demons, that soon we shall only be able to do goodness and justice in the deepest secrecy, as if it were a crime.
Franz Kafka