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Franz Kafka

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

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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.

– Franz Kafka

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I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

– Franz Kafka

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In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

– Franz Kafka

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There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring Impatience and Laziness.

– Franz Kafka

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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.

– Franz Kafka

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You are free, and that is why you are lost.

– Franz Kafka

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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

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A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

– Franz Kafka

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Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

– Franz Kafka

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Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.

– Franz Kafka

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Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

– Franz Kafka

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Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

– Franz Kafka

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From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

– Franz Kafka

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I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party and I attended with my real face.

– Franz Kafka

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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.

– Franz Kafka

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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

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May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

– Franz Kafka

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My fear... is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

– Franz Kafka

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Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.

– Franz Kafka

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Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin impatience. Because of impatience we are driven out of Paradise because of impatience we cannot return.

– Franz Kafka

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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.

– Franz Kafka

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There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.

– Franz Kafka

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