Franz Kafka quotes

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

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

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

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

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

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.

My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

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.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

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 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.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.