Franz Kafka quates

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

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

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.