Franz Kafka: Trending quotes

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Franz Kafka: 532 quotes129 likes

“I see, these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.”

Franz Kafka book The Trial

Source: The Trial

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out. Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing, which cannot be exaggerated. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression of everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true.
Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most — you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Hat matt nicht die Augen, um sich sie auszureißen und das Herz zum gleichen Zweck? Dabei ist es ja nicht so schlimm, das ist Übertreibung und Lüge, alles ist Übertreibung, nur die Sehnsucht ist wahr, die kann man nicht übertreiben. Aber selbst die Wahrheit der Sehnsucht ist nicht so sehr ihre Wahrheit, als vielmehr der Ausdruck der Lüge alles übrigen sonst. Es klingt verdreht, aber es ist so. Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist, daß Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. Letter to Milena Jesenská (14 September 1920) http://www.abyssal.de/zitate/liebe.htm Variant translations: In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself. Letters to Milena (1952)

“Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.”

Franz Kafka

“I’m doing badly, I’m doing well, whichever you prefer.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Variant: I’m doing badly, I’m doing well; whichever you prefer.
Source: Letters to Milena

“Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“By believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”

Franz Kafka

Attributed to Kafka in Ambiguous Spaces (2008) by NaJa & deOstos (Nannette Jackowski and Ricardo de Ostos), p. 7, and a couple other publications since, this is actually from Report to Greco (1965) by Nikos Kazantzakis, p. 434
Misattributed

“I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

29
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Context: The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.
The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.

“It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off.”

Franz Kafka

(18 October 1921)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Context: Eternal childhood. Life calls again.
It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour 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. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.

“For myself I am too heavy, and for you too light.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“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.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

13
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“Calm —indeed the calmest— reflection might be better than the most confused decisions”

Franz Kafka book The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis

“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena