Franz Kafka Quotes

Franz Kafka Quote: Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view...
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Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.

Franz Kafka (The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910 - 1923)

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice.

Franz Kafka (The Trial, 1920)

One is alone, a total stranger and only an object of curiosity. And so long as you say "one" instead of "I," there’s nothing in it and one can easily tell the story; but as soon as you admit to yourself that it is you yourself, you feel as though transfixed and are horrified.

Franz Kafka (Wedding Preparations in the Country)

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room.... There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.

Franz Kafka (The Blue Octavo Notebooks, 1917-1919)

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate ... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

Franz Kafka (The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1921)

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 (The Blue Octavo Notebooks, 1917-1919)

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.

Franz Kafka (Quoted in The Great Wall of China, 1970)

Human nature, essentially changeable, as unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it rends everything asunder, the wall, the bonds, and its very self.
Variant: Human nature, which is fundamentally careless and by nature like the whirling dust, endures no restraint. If it restricts itself, it will soon begin to shake the restraints madly and tear up walls, chains, and even itself in every direction.

Franz Kafka (The Great Wall of China)

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.

Franz Kafka (The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910 - 1923)

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Franz Kafka Biography

Born: July 3, 1883
Died: Juny 3, 1924

Franz Kafka was an Austrian-Hungarian novelist. Although much of his work wasn't finished before his death he still was and is considered to be one of the best writers in the 20th century.

Notable Works

Metamorphosis (1915)
The Blue Octavo Notebooks (1917-1919)
The Trial (1920)
The Castle (1926)
Amerika (1927)
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