“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”
“Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.”
Source: The Trial (1920), Ch. 8
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Franz Kafka 266
author 1883–1924Related quotes
As quoted in Sculpting in Time (1996), by Andrei Tarkovsky, p. 56
Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2010)
“It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”
“Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.”
"The Dust" <!-- p. 23 -->
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)
Context: Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.
Toppling a pillar and nudging a wall,
Building a sand pile to counter each fall.
Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.
“Man is created free, and is free,
Though he be born in chains.”
Die Worte des Glaubens (The Word of the Faithful), st. 2 (1797)
The Crisis No. III.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)
J 249
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)