Franz Kafka Quotes on Life
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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 than to be walked upon.
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One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will only in time come to hate.
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In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.
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Self-control is something for which I do not strive. Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.
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The way is infinitely long, nothing of it can be subtracted, nothing can be added, and yet everyone applies his own childish yardstick to it. 'Certainly, this yard of the way you still have to go, too, and it will be accounted unto you.'
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The fact that there is nothing but a spiritual world deprives us of hope and gives us certainty.
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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 the world 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.
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We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.
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'It cannot be said that we are lacking in faith. Even the simple fact of our life is of a faith-value that can never be exhausted.' 'You suggest there is some faith-value in this? One cannot not-live, after all.' 'It is precisely in this 'Cannot, after all' that the mad strength of faith lies; it is in this negation that it takes on form.' There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can't do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.
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Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice.
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Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
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Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
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Books are a narcotic
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Death confronts us not unlike the historical battle scene that hangs on the wall of the classroom. It is our task to obscure or quite obliterate the picture by our deeds while we are still in this world.
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I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
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My life is hesitation before birth.
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The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.
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The meaning of life is that it stops.
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We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the tree of life.
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What does the court want with you? It receives you when you come and it dismisses you when you go.
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Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.