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The man in ecstasy and the man drowning: both raise their arms.

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
Men
Drowning
Ecstasy
Raise
Raises
Arms

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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.
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If all responsibility is imposed on you, then you may want to exploit the moment and want to be overwhelmed by the responsibilityyet if you try, you will notice that nothing was imposed on you, but that you are yourself this responsibility.
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We were created in order to live in Paradise, and Paradise was ordained to serve us. What was ordained for us has been changed it is not said that this has also happened with what was ordained for Paradise.
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A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
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Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.
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There's an infinite amount of hope but not for us.
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Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
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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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Kill me, or you are a murderer.
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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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One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.
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The limited circle is pure.
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And so gentlemen, I learned. Oh, if you have to learn, you learn if you’re desperate for a way out, you learn you learn pitilessly. You stand over yourself with a whip in your hand if there’s the least resistance, you lash yourself.
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In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world.
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I want in fact more of you. In my mind I am dressing you with light I am wrapping you up in blankets of complete acceptance and then I give myself to you. I long for you I who usually long without longing, as though I am unconscious and absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really, utterly long for every bit of you.
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We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.
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it was like this. the brain could no longer bear the worries and pains that were imposed on it. it said: i'm giving up but if there is anyone else here who is interested in preserving the whole, let him assume part of my burden and it will be alright for a bit.
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So eager are our people to obliterate the present.
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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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I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.
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