Franz Kafka: Quotes about the trip

Franz Kafka was author. Explore interesting quotes on way.
Franz Kafka: 532 quotes129 likes

“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

“Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

“There is a destination but no way there; what we refer to as way is hesitation.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

Source: The Zürau Aphorisms

“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.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

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The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“We too must suffer all the suffering around us. We all have not one body, but we have one way of growing, and this leads us through all anguish, whether in this or in that form. Just as the child develops through all the stages of life right into old age and to death (and fundamentally to the earlier stage the later one seems out of reach, in relation both to desire and to fear), so also do we develop (no less deeply bound up with mankind than with ourselves) through all the sufferings of this world. There is no room for justice in this context, but neither is there any room either for fear of suffering or for the interpretation of suffering as a merit.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

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The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”

Franz Kafka

Variant: What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness.

“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.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

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The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Context: 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.”

“Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.”

Franz Kafka book The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis (1915)

“And so gentlemen, I learned. Oh, if you have to learn, you learn; if you’re desperate for a way out, you learn; you learn pitilessly. You stand over yourself with a whip in your hand; if there’s the least resistance, you lash yourself.”

Franz Kafka

Source: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite”

Franz Kafka

“Isolation is a way to know ourselves”

Franz Kafka

“In a way, I was safe writing”

Franz Kafka Letter to His Father

Source: Letter to His Father

“Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities for escape, again, are as many as hiding places. There is a goal, but no way; what we call a way is hesitation.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

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The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“When . . . some leisurely passer-by stopped . . . and spoke of cheating, that was in its way the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward.”

Franz Kafka

"A Hunger Artist"
The Complete Stories (1971)

“"You asking me the way?" "Yes," I said, "since I can't find it myself." "Give it up! Give it up!" said he, and turned with a sudden jerk, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.”

Franz Kafka

Variant translation: The Policeman said to me, "You want to know the way? Give up! Just give up!" And he turned away like a man that wants to be alone with his laughter.
The Complete Stories (1971)