Quote #9

3, (20 October 1917); as published in The Blue Octavo Notebooks (1954); also in Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings (1954); variant translations use 'cardinal sins' instead of 'main human sins' and 'laziness' instead of 'indolence'.

More from Franz Kafka

  1. There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expel…
  2. Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
  3. All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.
  4. The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worth…
  5. The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling…
  6. One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no…
  7. 'Hey, there's something falling down in there,' said the chief clerk. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that what had happened to him migh…
  8. A cage went in search of a bird.

All Franz Kafka quotes