Czech novelist who wrote in German about a nightmarish world of isolated and troubled individuals (1883-1924)

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Famous quotes by Franz Kafka:Sort:Popular A - Z

Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it Good God, we also would be happy if we had no books and such books that make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. What we must have are those books that come on us like ill fortune, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin impatience. Because of impatience we are driven out of Paradise because of impatience we cannot return.
There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise, it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.
There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring Impatience and Laziness.
There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
You are free, and that is why you are lost.
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.
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.

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