Novelist · Austrian · 1883 – 1924 · 82 quotes
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.
Franz Kafka
Novelist · Austrian · 1883 – 1924
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.
In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.
If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?
It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.
The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.
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.
I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
Dread of night. Dread of not-night.
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.
My "fear" is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
Evil is whatever distracts.
Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.
I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
Writers speak stench.
Religions get lost as people do.
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.
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.
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.
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.
