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Franz Kafka Quotations

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Franz Kafka
7/1883-6/1924 (Age at death: 40)

Franz Kafka was a major fiction writer of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), Austria–Hungary. His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously—is considered to be among the most influential in Western literature. (From Wikipedia)

11 Quotation(s) Total:

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"one must throw one's life away in order to gain it."



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Franz Kafka

A book should serve as the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
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Franz Kafka

Before the law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway ...
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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 fashion. Rather, follow your own most intense obsessions mercilessly.
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Franz Kafka

For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie sleekly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can't be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.
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Franz Kafka

If one were only an Indian, instantly alert, and on a racing horse, leaning against the wind, kept on quivering jerkily over the quivering ground, until one shed one's spurs, for there needed no spurs, threw away the reins, for there needed no reins, and hardly saw that the land before one was smoothly shorn heath when horse's neck and head would be already gone.
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Franz Kafka

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.
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Franz Kafka

It is oten safer to be in chains than to be free.

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Franz Kafka

Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
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Franz Kafka

There are possibilities for me, certainly; but under what stone do they lie?
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Franz Kafka

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.
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Franz Kafka

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