Franz Kafka citations

Page 3

La Métamorphose

La Métamorphose

La Métamorphose

J. M. Coetzee, Imre Kertész

Réflexions sur le péché, la souffrance, l'espérance et le vrai chemin

Le Procès

J. M. Coetzee, Imre Kertész

Journal

Journal

Journal

J. M. Coetzee

Les Recherches d'un chien

Journal

Journal

Journal

Le Procès

Journal

The Metamorphosis

Journal

Du kannst jemanden, der die Augen verbunden hat, noch so sehr aufmuntern, durch das Tuch zu starren, er wird doch niemals etwas sehen; erst wenn man ihm das Tuch abnimmt, kann er sehen.
de
Le Château

106
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

86
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

80
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

77
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

30
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

9; parody of a statement of Victor Hugo
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

Source: Letters to Felice (Dopisy Felici)

Variante: 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.

Variante: It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.
Source: The Trial

Comment to a fish, after becoming a vegetarian, p. 74 http://books.google.com/books?id=6TNVWo7S6n8C&pg=PA74&dq=kafka+look+peace+eat#PPA74,M1
Franz Kafka: A Biography (1960)

Variant translation: The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but at the very last.
Parables and Paradoxes (1946)
Contexte: The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day.

(18 October 1921)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Contexte: 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.

Letter to Oskar Pollak (8 November 1903); cited from Briefe, 1902-1924 (1958) edited by [Max Brod]], p. 27<!-- New York: Schocken --> ; translation from Franz Kafka, Representative Man (1991) by Frederick R. Karl, p. 98 <!-- New York: Ticknor & Fields -->
Contexte: We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell.

29
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Contexte: 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.

(18 October 1921)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Contexte: 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.

85
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Contexte: Evil is a radiation of the human consciousness in certain transitional positions. It is not actually the sensual world that is a mere appearance; what is so is the evil of it, which, admittedly, is what constitutes the sensual world in our eyes.

39
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Contexte: 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.”

51
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

(July 1910)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Contexte: I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.

Source: The Trial (1920), Ch. 7
Contexte: What an obstacle had suddenly arisen to block K.'s career! And this was the moment when he was supposed to work for the bank? He looked down at his desk. This the time to interview clients and negotiate with them? While his case was unfolding itself, while up in the attics the Court officials were poring over the charge papers, was he to devote his attention to the affairs of the bank? It looked like a kind of torture sanctioned by the Court, arising from his case and concomitant with it.

(July 1910)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Contexte: I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.