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Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes

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Famous Franz Kafka Quotes

“The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison.”

PhilosophyExistentialism
Book:Investigations of a Dog
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“In the newspapers, in conversation, in the office, the impetuosity of language often leads one astray, also the hope, springing from temporary weakness, for a sudden and stronger illumination in the very next moment, also mere strong self-confidence, or mere carelessness, or a great present impression that one wishes at any cost to shift into the future, also the opinion that true enthusiasm in the present justifies any future confusion, also delight in sentences that are elevated in the middle by one or two jolts and open the mouth gradually to its full size even if they let it close much too quickly and tortuously, also the slight possibility of a decisive and clear judgement, or the effort to give further flow to the speech that has really ended, also the desire to escape from the subject in a hurry, one’s belly if it must be, or despair that seeks a way out for its heavy breath, or the longing for a light without shadow – all this can lead one astray to sentences like: ‘The book which I have just finished is the most beautiful I have ever read,’ or, ‘is more beautiful than any I have ever read’.”

LanguageEmotionThoughtDistractions
Book:Diaries, 1910-1923
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“When the little mouse, which was loved as none other was in the mouse-world, got into a trap one night and with a shrill scream forfeited its life for the sight of the bacon, all the mice in the district, in their holes were overcome by trembling and shaking; with eyes blinking uncontrollably they gazed at each other one by one, while their tails scraped the ground busily and senselessly. Then they came out, hesitantly, pushing one another, all drawn towards the scene of death. There it lay, the dear little mouse, its neck caught in the deadly iron, the little pink legs drawn up, and now stiff the feeble body that would so well have deserved a scrap of bacon. The parents stood beside it and eyed their child's remains.”

DeathDyingMiceKafkaMouse
Book:The Blue Octavo Notebooks
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“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 –he has little success in this –but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.”

LifeFateDespairSurvivorDiary
Book:Diaries, 1910-1923
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“В дневнике находишь доказательства того, что даже в состояниях, которые сегодня кажутся невыносимыми, ты жил, смотрел вокруг и записывал свои наблюдения, что, таким образом, вот эта правая рука двигалась, как сегодня, когда ты благодаря возможности обозреть тогдашнее состояние, правда, поумнел, но с тем большим основанием ты должен признать бесстрашие своего тогдашнего стремления, сохранившегося, несмотря на полное неведение.”

IgnoranceDespairDaringDiary
Author:Franz Kafka
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“At the same time all the houses round about promptly took part in this silence, and so did the darkness above them, reaching as far as the stars. And the footsteps of invisible passers-by, whose course I had no wish to guess at, the wind that kept on driving against the other side of the street, the gramophone singing behind closed windows in some room - they made themselves heard in this silence, as if they had owned it for ever and ever.”

SilenceMeditationContemplationKafka
Book:Contemplation
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“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.”

JusticeLogicCourtIrrationalBureaucracySenseJudgeTrialTotalitarianAbsence Of Values
Book:The Trial
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“Prayer and art are passionate acts of will. One wants to transcend and enhance the will's normal possibilities. Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts. prayer means casting oneself into the miraculous rainbow that stretches between becoming and dying, to be utterly consumed in it, in order to bring its infinite radiance to bed in the frail little cradle of one's own existence”

ArtReligionPrayer
Author:Franz Kafka
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“Y, sin embargo, mentiría si dijera que la extraño. Es el hechizo más perfecto y más doloroso. Usted está aquí, igual que yo y con mayor intensidad aún; allí donde yo estoy, está usted, como yo y más intensamente aún. No bromeo. A veces imagino que usted -que está aquí- extraña mi presencia y pregunta: "¿Pero dónde está? ¿Acaso no escribía diciendo que estaba en Merano? [...] El día es tan corto. Transcurre y termina con usted y fuera de usted sólo hay unas pocas nimiedades. Apenas me queda un rato para escribirle a la verdadera Milena, porque la Milena más verdadera aún ha estado aquí todo el día, en la habitación, en el balcón, en las nubes.”

LettersSpanish
Author:Franz Kafka
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“Mientras estaba tendido allí, a un paso de mí yacía un escarabajo, patas arriba, desesperado. No podía enderezarse, me habría gustado ayudarlo, era tan fácil hacerlo, bastaba un paso y un empujoncito para brindarle una ayuda efectiva. Pero lo olvidé a causa de la carta. Además no podía ponerme de pie. Por fin, una lagartija logró que volviera a tomar conciencia de la vida que me rodeaba. Su camino la llevó hasta el escarabajo, que ya estaba totalmente inmóvil. De modo que no fue un accidente, me dije, sino una lucha mortal, el raro espectáculo de la muerte natural de un animal. Pero la lagartija al deslizarse por encima del escarabajo, lo enderezó. Por uno instantes continuó inmóvil, como muerto, pero luego trepó la pared como la cosa más natural. Es probable que eso me haya brindado, de alguna manera, un poco de coraje. Lo cierto es que me puse de pie, bebí leche y le escribí a usted.”

LettersSpanish
Book:Letters to Milena
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“And all the time it's raining outside and doesn't look as though it will ever stop. Doesn't worry me at all, I'm under cover and am only embarrassed to eat my opulent Gabelfrühstük in front of the house painter who at the moment is standing on the scaffolding before my windows and who, furious about the rain which has temporarily stopped and about the amount of butter I'm putting on my bread, is splashing the windows unnecessarily (which is probably also only my imagination, since he is no doubt 100 times less preoccupied with me than I with him). No, now he is really working in pouring rain and thunder.”

RainLettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“Do you know, by the way, that you were given to me as a present for my Confirmation (there's something like a Jewish Confirmation)? I was born in '83, so I was 13 when you were born. The 13th birthday is a special occasion. Up near the altar in the temple I had to recite a piece learned by heart with great difficulty, then at home I had to make a brief speech (also learned by heart). I also received many presents. But I imagine that I was not entirely satisfied, one particular present I missed, I demanded it from heaven; it hesitated until 10 August.”

LettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“I'm afraid I'm not very well prepared for your birthday, have slept even worse than usual, head hot, eyes burned out, torturing temples, coughing as well. I'm afraid I couldn't recite a lengthy congratulation without coughing. Fortunately no congratulation is required, just thanks that you exist in this world, where at first sight, I wouldn't have suspected (you see, I don' have much knowledge of the world, either - except that, in contrast to you, I admit it) that you could be found. And I thank you for it (is this gratitude?) with a kiss precisely like the one on the railway station, although you didn't like it (today I'm rather obstinate).”

LettersBirthday WishesLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“What you wrote about the people, Milena - 'nemáte síly milovat' - 'who haven't got the strength to love' - was correct, even though while writing it down you didn't consider it correct. Perhaps their talent for love consists only in the ability to be loved. And even in this exists a qualifying distinction for these people. If one of them says to his beloved: 'I believe that you love me', then this is something completely different and much less than when he says: 'I'm loved by you'. These, of course, are not lovers but grammarians.”

LoveLettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because it is part of you, because only there is the whole Milena (the translation confirms it), whereas here is just the one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna. So Czech, please. And send the feuilletons you mention, too. Let them be shabby, you have also read your way through the shabbiness of my story, how far I don't know. Perhaps I can do this, too; but if I can't, then I'll remain stuck in the very best of prejudices.”

LanguageLetters
Book:Letters to Milena
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“The most beautiful of your letters (and that means a lot, for as a whole they are, almost in every line, the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life) are those in which you agree with my 'fear' and at the same time try to explain that I don't need to have it. For I too, even though I may sometimes look like a bribed defender of my 'fear', probably agree with it deep down in myself, indeed it is part of me and perhaps the best part. And as it is my best, it is also perhaps this alone that you love. For what else worthy of love could be found in me? But this is worthy of love.”

LettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“So far as the beggar woman is concerned, there was certainly neither anything good nor anything bad in it, I was simply too distracted or too much preoccupied with one thing to act in any other way but according to vague memories. And one such memory says, for instance: 'Don't give too much to beggars, you'll regret it later.' Once as a very small boy I was given a Sechserl and felt a great urge to hand it to an old beggar woman who sat between the Grosse and the Kleine Ring. But the sum seemed to me enormous, a sum which probably never before had been given to a beggar, so I was ashamed in front of the beggar woman to do something so unheard-of, but give it to her I felt I must. I therefore changed the Sechserl into ten Kreuzers, gave one to the beggar woman, ran round the whole block of the Town Hall and the arcade near the Kleine Ring, arrived from the left as a completely new benefactor, gave the beggar woman another Kreuzer, started to run again and actually made this round ten times (or maybe not quite so many, for I believe the beggar woman lost her patience later and disappeared). In any case, toward the end I was so exhausted, morally as well, that I ran straight home and cried until my mother replaced the Sechserl. You see, I have bad luck with beggars, but I declare myself prepared to pay out my entire present and future fortune in the smallest Viennese bank notes to a beggar woman standing by the Opera, on condition that you're present and I may feel you close to me.”

LettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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“Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because it is part of you, because there is the whole Milena (the translation confirms it), whereas here is just the one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna. So Czech, please. And send the feuilletons you mention, too. Let them be shabby, you have also read your way through the shabbiness of my story, how far I don't know. Perhaps I can do this, too; but if I can't then I'll remain stuck in the best of prejudices.”

LanguageLetters
Book:Letters to Milena
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