Quotes from Franz Kafka

18. Gdyby mo?na by?o wznie?? wie?? Babel nie wspinaj?c si? na ni?, budowa by?aby dozwolona.

But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well

their heads looked as if they had been beaten flat on top and their features shaped in the pain of the beating

52. W walce pomi?dzy tob? a ?wiatem sekunduj ?wiatu.

Ciertamente, la libertad que hoy es posible es un arbusto raquítico. Pero, al fin y al cabo, es libertad que, al fin y al cabo, es un bien.

27. Zosta? na nas na?o?ony jedynie obowi?zek negacji; to, co pozytywne, zosta?o nam ju? dane.

Parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. We lose in parable the moment we pin things down to an accessible meaning.

Precisamente, la cautela exige tener una posibilidad inmediata de huida; precisamente, la cautela exige, como por desgracia ocurre muchas veces, arriesgar la vida.

He felt himself as much at liberty as is normally only felt in foreign parts when speaking with people of lower standing, keeping everything about himself to himself, speaking only casually about the interests of the other, able to raise him to a level above one's own, but also able, at will, to let him drop again.

The animal twists the whip out of its master's grip and whips itself to become its own master—not knowing that this is only a fantasy, produced by a new knot in the master's whiplash.

Nothing alive can be calculated.

Folgte er aber wirklich dem Rat […] so bliebe er dann trotz allem in seiner Fremde, verbittert durch die Ratschläge, und den Freunden noch ein Stück mehr entfremdet […] fände sich nicht in seinen Freunden und nicht ohne sie zurecht, litte an Beschämung, hätte jetzt wirklich keine Heimat und keine Freunde mehr; war es da nicht viel besser für ihn, er blieb in der Fremde, so wie er war?

From the true opponent, a limitless courage flows into you.

And so long as you say 'one' instead of 'I,' there's nothing in it and one can easily tell the story; but as soon as you admit to yourself that it is yourself you feel as though transfixed and horrified.

29. Ukryte myÅ›li, którymi chÅ'oniesz zÅ'o, nie sÄ… twoje, lecz zÅ'a.

If ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This time I will stay... I swore it and when the time came — I DIDN'T GO.

The simile of the bird in the hand and the two in the bush has only a very remote application here. In my hand I have nothing, in the bush is everything, and yet—so it is decided by the conditions of battle and the exigency of life—I must choose the nothing.

Prayer," Kafka notes, brings "its infinite radiance to bed in the frail little cradle of one's own existence.

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love

The bony structure of his own forehead blocks his way; he batters himself bloody against his own forehead.

Ah, mon Dieu!, pensa-t-il, quel métier exténuant j'ai donc choisi ! Jour après jour un voyage. Les ennuis professionnels sont bien plus grands que ceux qu'on aurait en restant au magasin et j'ai par-dessus le marché la corvée des voyages, le souci des changements de trains, la nourriture irrégulière et médiocre, des têtes toujours nouvelles, jamais de relations durables ni cordiales avec personne. Le diable emporte ce métier !

25. Jedynie uciekaj?c od ?wiata mo?na si? nim cieszy?.

Istnieje cel, ale nie ma drogi; to, co nazywasz drogÄ…, jest wahaniem.

22. Jeste? zadaniem. Jak okiem si?gn??, nie wida? ucznia.