928 Quotes by Franz Kafka

What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.

So eager are our people to obliterate the present.

One reads in order to ask questions

I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even when they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the joys and sorrows of my relatives bore me to my soul. Conversation takes the importance, the seriousness, the truth, out of everything I think.

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.

Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects.

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

I like to make use of what I know