Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafkawas a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung", Der Process, and Das Schloss. The term Kafkaesque has entered the English...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 July 1883
CityPrague, Czech Republic
May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.
Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.
The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.
We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.
Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.
Writer speaks a stench.
How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.
There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.
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.
Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.
If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.
Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.
The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.