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Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes

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Famous Franz Kafka Quotes

“13 September. Again barely two pages. At first I thought my sorrow over the Austrian defeats and my anxiety for the future (anxiety that appears ridiculous to me at bottom, and base too) would prevent me from doing any writing. But that wasn’t it, it was only an apathy that forever comes back and forever has to be put down again. There is time enough for sorrow when I am not writing. The thoughts provoked in me by the war resemble my old worries over F. in the tormenting way in which they devour me from every direction. I can’t endure worry, and perhaps have been created expressly in order to die of it. When I shall have grown weak enough –it won’t take very long –the most trifling worry will perhaps suffice to rout me. In this prospect I can also see a possibility of postponing the disaster as long as possible.”

WritingInspirationCreativityWorryAnxietyAuthorApathyWriters Block
Book:Diaries, 1910-1923
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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.”

HumansTwoSinReturnMajorsParadiseImpatienceIndolence
Book:The Blue Octavo Notebooks
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“I don't know who the great lawyers are, and I presume you can't get to them. I know of no case where it can be said for certain that they took part. They defend some people, but you can't get them to do that through your own efforts, they only defend the ones they want to defend. But I assume a case they take on must have progressed beyond the lower court. It's better not to think of them at all, otherwise you'll find the consultations with the other lawyers, their advice and their assistance, extremely disgusting and useless.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWantSaidCertainEffortCasesAdviceCourtAssumingLawyerUselessDisgustingAssistanceConsultation
Author:Franz Kafka
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“Psychology is the description of the reflection of the terrestial world in the heavenly plane, or, more correctly, the description of a reflection such as we, soaked as we are in our terrestial nature, imagine it, for no reflection actually occurs, only we see earth wherever we turn.”

WorldEarthTurnsPsychologyImagineReflectionPlanesDescriptionHeavenly
Book:Wedding preparations in the country: and other posthumous prose writings. With notes by Max Brod
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“Expulsion from Paradise is in its main aspect eternal: that is to say, although expulsion from Paradise is final, and life in theworld unavoidable, the eternity of the process (or, expressed in temporal terms, the eternal repetition of the process) nevertheless makes it possible not only that we might remain in Paradise permanently, but that we may in fact be there permanently, no matter whether we know it here or not.”

KnowsMayMatterFactsMightTimeProcessTermEternalAspectEternityFinalsParadiseNeverthelessRepetitionExpulsion
Book:Wedding preparations in the country: and other posthumous prose writings. With notes by Max Brod
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“In one and the same human being there are cognitions that, however utterly dissimilar they are, yet have one and the same object,so that one can only conclude that there are different subjects in one and the same human being.”

HumansDifferentHuman BeingsSubjectsHuman NatureObjectsExperienceIndividualismBeing ThereCognitionDifferent Subjects
Book:Wedding preparations in the country: and other posthumous prose writings. With notes by Max Brod
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