Franz Kafka

“One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.”

“Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.”

“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”

“Plenty of hope — for God — no end of hope — only not for us.”

“Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.”

“How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense.”

“"Hey, there’s something falling down in there," said the chief clerk. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that what had happened to him might some day also happen to the chief clerk. There was no denying that anything was possible.”

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

“Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.”

“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.”

“It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.”

“They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”

“The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.”

“Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free.”

“'...it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.' 'A melancholy conclusion,' said K. 'It turns lying into a universal principle.In the Cathedral”

“"Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.”

“There's no quiet place here on earth for our love, not in the village and not anywhere else, so I picture a grave, deep and narrow, in which we embrace as if clamped together, I bury my face against you, you yours against me, and no one will ever see us.”

“If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything”

“The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment. An attempt to falsify the actuality of knowledge, to regard knowledge as a goal still to be reached.”

“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.”

“"Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said.”

“Germany has declared war on Russia. Swimming in the afternoon.”

“The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”

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

“There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.”

“Anyone who believes cannot experience miracles. By day one does not see any stars. Anyone who does miracles says: I cannot let go of the earth.”

“Religions get lost as people do.”

“Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.”

“Das Böse weiß vom Guten, aber das Gute vom Bösen nicht. Selbsterkenntnis hat nur das Böse. - Die Acht Oktavhefte; published by BookRix, 9-8-2014.”

“Now at last I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.”