Quote

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.

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
Higher
Fear
Self
Torments
Life
Ascent
Delights
Torment
Torture
Delight

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There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
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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.
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Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.
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there is nothing bad to fear once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak
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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.
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The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.
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First impressions are always unreliable.
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So then you’re free?’ ‘Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.
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I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even if they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to the very soul. Conversation takes the importance, the seriousness, the truth, out of everything I think.
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The various forms of despair at the various stations on the road.
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The notion of the infinite expanse and copiousness of the cosmos is the result of the mixture, carried to the extreme limit, of laborious creation and free self-determination.
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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.
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If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?
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Going to pieces. To go to pieces so pointlessly and unnecessarily.
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You are so vulnerably haunting. Your eeriness is terrifyingly irresistible.
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What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.
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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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The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.
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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
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If they were shocked, then Gregor had no further responsibility and could be calm. But if they took everything calmly, he he, too, had no reason to get excited and could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight o'clock.
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