928 Quotes by Franz Kafka

Ours is a lost generation, it may be, but it is more blameless than those earlier generations.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

Simply wait, be quiet, still The world will freely offer itself to you.

There is a down-and-outness under true knowledge and a childlike happy arising from it.

The true way goes over a line that, rather than spanning heights, is hardly above the ground. It appears more decidedly to make one trip than to be walked along.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.

Celibacy and suicide are a similar levels of understanding, suicide and a martyr's death not so by any means, perhaps marriage and a martyr's death.

There are two cardinal human sins out of which all others derive, deviate, and dissipate: impatience and lassitude (or perhaps nonchalance). On account of impatience they are driven out of paradise; on account of lassitude or nonchalance they do not return. Perhaps, however, only one main sense of sin is given: impatience. On account of impatience they are driven out, on account of impatience they do not turn back.