Franz Kafka Quotes

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

You are free and that is why you are lost.

The meaning of life is that it stops.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Books are a narcotic.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.