Quotes from Franz Kafka

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.

Love is a drama of contradictions.

Love is, that you are the knife which I plunge into myself.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects.

Religions get lost as people do.

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.

Writers speak stench.

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.

You need not even listen, just wait...the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself.

The various forms of despair at the various stations on the road.

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.

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.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

The truth is always an abyss.

Love has as few problems as a motor car. The only problems are the driver, the passengers, and the road.

Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.

Anyone who loves his neighbor within the limits of the world is doing no more and no less injustice than someone who loves himself within the limits of the world.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.