Life Quotes Quote by Franz Kafka — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?”

“The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.”

“All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.”

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

“The meaning of life is that it stops.”

“The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison.”

“إذا خفيت عنا الحكمة في العذاب أحيانا.. فلأننا لا ندرك كل شيء ولا نعرف كل شيء، ولا ندرك من القصة إلا تلك المرحلة المحدودة بين قوسين اسمها الدنيا.. أما ما قبل ذلك ومابعد ذلك فهو بالنسبة لنا غيب محجوب.. ولذا يجب أن نصمت في احترام ولانطلق الأحكام..”

““You are a child of the universe,”

“We have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore- except to make our lives into a work of art.”

“Oh, something is there, waiting for me. Perhaps someday the revelation will burst in upon me and I will see the other side of this monumental grotesque joke. And then I'll laugh. And then I'll know what life is.”

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”