Best Franz Kafka Quotes

Franz Kafka Quotes About Life, Love, Metamorphosis, The Trail, Writing, Books, Politics, Death & Philosophy! In works such as “Amerika,” “The Trial,” and “The Castle,” author Franz Kafka explores the human need for knowledge and safety in his fiction. On July 3, 1883, he was born in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even in the Altstädter Staatsgymnasium, an academically rigorous high school, Kafka was a brilliant student.

After graduating from high school, Kafka enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University of Prague, intending to major in chemistry. However, after two weeks of classes, he changed his focus to law. In late 1907, Kafka obtained employment with an Italian insurance business after finishing his apprenticeship.

Working long hours with little time to write was not a good match from the start. The majority of his work was not made public during his lifetime. He finished and released “The Metamorphosis” in 1912, making it his most famous and best-selling short fiction. The Vltava River and its toll bridge were visible from Kafka’s third-floor room, wherever he wrote the novel.

Kafka kept writing despite his deteriorating condition. “The Judgment,” which he finished in 1916, actually dealt with his father-son relationship. There are now words like “Kafkaesque” in the dictionary to describe circumstances similar to those in his tales because his work is founded on existentialist and surrealist concepts. Furthermore, Kafka was an excellent thinker, as seen by his extensive career, which includes several statements that may apply to almost every element of life.

Best Franz Kafka Quotes

1. “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.” – Franz Kafka

2. “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” – Franz Kafka

3. “By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.” – Franz Kafka

4. “Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.” – Franz Kafka

5. “God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.” – Franz Kafka

6. “He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.” – Franz Kafka

7. “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.” – Franz Kafka

8. “In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.” – Franz Kafka

9. “It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.” – Franz Kafka

10. “Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.” – Franz Kafka

11. “May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”- Franz Kafka

12. “One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.” – Franz Kafka

13. “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” – Franz Kafka

14. “Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.” – Franz Kafka

15. “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.” – Franz Kafka

16. “A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.” – Franz Kafka

17. “A book should be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.” – Franz Kafka

18. “A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die” – Franz Kafka

19. “Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.” – Franz Kafka

20. “Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.” – Franz Kafka

21. “Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have.” – Franz Kafka

22. “By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.” – Franz Kafka

23. “Do not waste your time looking for an obstacle – maybe there is none.” – Franz Kafka

24. “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” – Franz Kafka

25. “Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.” – Franz Kafka

26. “He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.” – Franz Kafka

27. “I am a cage, in search of a bird.” – Franz Kafka

28. “I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.” – Franz Kafka

29. “I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.” – Franz Kafka

30. “I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.” – Franz Kafka