Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period
Book 1; On the necessity of standards
Mozi
“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”
— Franz Kafka, book The Trial
First lines, Ch. 1
Variant translation: Somebody must have slandered Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
Source: The Trial (1920)
Context: Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. His landlady's cook, who always brought him his breakfast at eight o'clock, failed to appear on this occasion. That had never happened before.
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Franz Kafka266
author 1883–1924Related quotes
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Context: If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He’d have done anything to please us;
Gone sneaking into synagogues,
And not us’d the Elders and Priests like dogs;
But humble as a lamb or ass
Obey’d Himself to Caiaphas.
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Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose. (Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.) —Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".
Misattributed
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Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind
Source: The Name of the Wind