Franz Kafka Quotes. will make you think about life. The novelist Franz Kafka’s thoughts are on a different level. He always thinks about what life would be like if you were a tiny insect. Here we collect the best quotes for you and in these quotes, we have Kafka Quotes, Letters to Milena Quotes, and Kafka Metamorphosis Quotes.
Franz Kafka is a great novelist and short-story writer of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. He is best known for the short story “The Metamorphosis” and the novels “The Trial” and “The Castle”.
Kafka was born on 3 July 1883 into a middle-class German-Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia. He trained as a lawyer and after completing his education he started work for an insurance company. He died on 3 June 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.
Imagine yourself as a tiny little insect then you can feel or realize life is some other creature. Kafka’s Metamorphosis Quotes is all about that. Metamorphosis is an allegorical novella that was first published in 1915. One of Kafka’s best-known works, Metamorphosis tells the story of a salesman, who wakes one morning and finds himself transformed into a huge insect and struggles to adjust to this new condition. In popular culture and adaptations of the novella, the insect is represented as a cockroach.
Few of Kafka’s works were published during his lifetime. His work has influenced a vast range of writers, critics, artists, and philosophers during the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Franz Kafka Quotes
God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. — Franz Kafka
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
The history of mankind is the instant two strides taken by a traveler. — Franz Kafka
I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.— Franz Kafka
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
I am a cage, in search of a bird. — Franz Kafka
I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
The metaphysical urge is only the urge toward death. — Franz Kafka
Religions get lost as people do. — Franz Kafka
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. — Franz Kafka
Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.
He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found. — Franz Kafka
May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might well open the window and kiss the night air.
You are free and that is why you are lost.
Evil is whatever distracts. — Franz Kafka
In peacetime, you don’t get anywhere, in wartime you bleed to death. — Franz Kafka
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
A first of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. — Franz Kafka
I usually solve problems by letting them devour me. — Franz Kafka
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie. — Franz Kafka
My life was sweeter than other people’s and my death will be more terrible by the same degree.
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.
Franz Kafka Letters to Milena Quotes
Torment yourself as little as possible, then you’ll torment me less. — Franz Kafka
Anyone who cares about you has to realize that you need a little looking after, nothing else really matters. — Franz Kafka
Most of all, I’d like to have all the time there is just for you, for thinking about you, for breathing in you.
I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly. — Franz Kafka
I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity. — Franz Kafka
I usually solve problems by letting them devour me. — Franz Kafka
…But what am I supposed to do if this fear, and not my heart, is beating in my body? — Franz Kafka,
For myself I am too heavy, and for you too light. — Franz Kafka
I can never tear myself open wide enough to people to reveal everything and so frighten them away. — #Letters to Milena Quotes
I’m doing badly, I’m doing well; whichever you prefer. — Franz Kafka
I need all the time and a thousand times more than all the time and if possible all the time that exists, for you, to think of you, to breathe in you. — Franz Kafka
But that is the past and should remain deep in the past. — Franz Kafka
If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss. — Franz Kafka
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember; all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Kafka Quotes Meaning of Life
If it is not possible to converge closer, people disperse further. — Franz Kafka
Life all the time distracts our attention and we do not even have time to notice from what exactly.
Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. — Franz Kafka
There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. — Franz Kafka
I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into the deepest darkness.
A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die.
The meaning of life is that it stops. — Franz Kafka
All languages are but a poor translation.
Books are a narcotic. — Franz Kafka
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it.
The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
It is not difficult to love the ones who leave.
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stabbed us.
Paths are made by walking — Franz Kafka
He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived…
In man’s struggle against the world, bet on the world.
First impressions are always unreliable.
Anyone looking for evidence of infidelity hopes not to find it.
From a certain point onward there is no longer turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one is alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm. — Franz Kafka
Everything, including lies, serves the truth.
The book should be an ice pick for the frozen sea within us.
Only people affected by the same ailments understand each other.
If a woman decides to cheat, she is in search of the best, and if a man – he just needs novelty.
A person who lies in love does not even deserve to be hated.
Nobody can give more than the one who has lost everything.
He who has cognized the fullness of life does not know the fear of death.
The fear of death is only the result of an unfulfilled life.
Pay no attention to anyone, do what you think is right.
It is impossible to make excuses when they do not want to believe you.
Thoughts that are spoken out loud immediately and finally lose their meaning. — Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka Quotes About Writing
“A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.” ― Franz Kafka
“Every word first looks around in every direction before letting itself be written down by me.” ― Franz Kafka
“I need solitude for my writing; not ‘like a hermit – that wouldn’t be enough – but like a dead man.” ― Franz Kafka
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” ― Franz Kafka
“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.” ― Franz Kafka
“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.” ― Franz Kafka
The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but the truth, being indivisible, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.” ― Franz Kafka
“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” ― Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka Quotes on Death
“Kill me, or you are a murderer.” ― Franz Kafka
“The meaning of life is that it stops.” ― Franz Kafka
“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.” ― Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka Quotes on Love
“You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart; imagine my heartbeat when you are in this state.” ― Franz Kafka
“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.” ― Franz Kafka
“May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.” ― Franz Kafka
“Love is, that you are the knife which I plunge into myself.” ― Kafka
“Everything you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.” ― Franz Kafka
“I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.” ― Franz Kafka