Aphorisms of French Kafka. Franz Kafka: quotes and aphorisms Kafka quotes about love

Franz Kafka is one of the strangest, most unusual and shocking writers of the 20th century. Due to his difficult and difficult life, Kafka constantly tried to go against society. Unfortunately, his work only gained popularity after his death. Quotes from Franz Kafka are quite harsh, but they make you think about a lot.

It is not difficult to love someone who leaves.

“I have no interest in literature, literature is me, it is my flesh and blood, and I cannot be different.”

“What is clear in the soul is equally irrefutable and clear on paper.”

“All the unhappiness of my life comes from letters or from the ability to write them.”

“Women are traps that are waiting for men everywhere in order to drag them back to the End.”

“After a certain point, returning is no longer possible. This point must be reached."

“The true path follows a rope that is not stretched high, but above the ground itself. It seems designed more to be tripped over than to be walked on.”

“One of the most effective temptations of evil is the call to fight.”

“Theoretically, there is the complete possibility of happiness: to believe in something indestructible in oneself and not strive for it.”

“Faith is the ax of the guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.”

“Two possibilities: to make oneself infinitesimal or to be one. The second is completion, which means inactivity, the first is the beginning, which means action.”

“You can distance yourself from the suffering of the world, this is allowed to you and corresponds to your nature, but perhaps this very detachment is the only suffering that you could avoid.”

“He who has known the fullness of life does not know the fear of death. Fear of death is only the result of an unfulfilled life. This is an expression of betrayal of her.”

“Happiness excludes old age. He who retains the ability to see beauty does not grow old.”

“Art is always a matter of the whole person. Therefore it is fundamentally tragic.”

“Random exists only in our heads, in our limited perception. It is a reflection of the boundaries of our knowledge. The fight against chance is always a fight against ourselves, a fight in which we can never become winners.”

“The shackles of tormented humanity are made of stationery.”

“Everything, including lies, serves the truth. The shadows don't extinguish the sun."

“Doctor, give me death - otherwise you are a murderer (Kafka’s dying words).”

“The first sign of the beginning of knowledge is the desire to die.”

“Life distracts our attention all the time; and we don’t even have time to notice why exactly.”

“A thought expressed out loud immediately and completely loses its meaning; written down, it also always loses it, but sometimes it acquires a new meaning.”

(1883 - 1924) - an outstanding Czech writer of Jewish origin. He wrote his works in German, but was published almost nowhere. In his will, he asked his friend Max Brod that his entire literary heritage be destroyed. But Brod did not fulfill Kafka’s last wish, thanks to which the whole world saw the great (but unfinished) novels “The Trial”, “The Castle” and “America”, as well as brilliant short stories. As it turned out, Kafka turned out to be one of the main writers of the last century. Numerous authors around the world (ranging from Murakami to Borges) have called him their teacher.

We have selected 20 quotes from the works of Franz Kafka:

Franz Kafka

Aphorisms

Reflections on the true path

1. The true path follows a rope that is not stretched high, but above the ground itself. It seems designed more to be tripped over than to be walked on.

2. All human mistakes are impatience, a premature abandonment of method, and an imaginary concentration on an imaginary task.

3. There are two main human sins from which all others flow: impatience and negligence. Because of impatience, people are expelled from paradise, because of negligence they do not return there. Or maybe there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.

4. Many shadows of the departed are busy only with licking the waves of the river of death, because it flows from us and still retains the salty taste of our sea. Out of disgust, this river rises, begins to flow backwards and carries the dead back to life. And they are happy, singing songs of gratitude and stroking the indignant river.

5. After a certain point, returning is no longer possible. This point must be reached.

6. The decisive moment of human development lasts forever. Therefore, the revolutionary spiritual movements are right when they declare everything that happened in the past to be insignificant, because nothing has happened yet.

7. One of the most effective temptations of evil is the call to fight.

8. It's like a fight with women that ends in bed.

9. A. is very pompous, he thinks that he has been very successful in good, since, obviously being always a tempting object, he experiences more and more temptations from sides completely unknown to him before.

10. And the correct explanation is that a large demon possessed him and a multitude of little ones came running to serve the big one.

11–12. The difference in views that one might have, say, on an apple: the look of a baby who has to crane his neck just to see the apple on the table board, and the look of the owner of the house who takes the apple and easily serves it to his dining companion.

13. The first sign of the beginning of knowledge is the desire to die. This life seems unbearable, the other seems unattainable. You are no longer ashamed that you want to die; you ask to be transferred from the old cell, which you hate, to the new one, which you are just beginning to hate. There is also a remnant of faith here that during the journey the chief will accidentally pass along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: “Don’t lock this one up anymore. I'm taking him with me."

14. If you walked along a level road, walked of your own free will and still retreated back, then it would be a lost cause; but since you are climbing a steep slope, so steep that from below you yourself seem to be hanging on it, then steps backward can only be caused by the peculiarities of the soil, and you should not despair.

15. It’s like a road in autumn: as soon as it’s swept away, it’s already covered with dry leaves again.

16. The cage went to look for the bird.

17. I have never been to this place before: it breathes differently, more dazzling than the sun, a star shines next to it.

18. If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been allowed.

19. Don't let evil convince you that you might have secrets from him.

20. Leopards break into the temple and drink the contents of the sacrificial vessels to the bottom; this is repeated again and again, and eventually it can be provided for and becomes part of the ritual.

21. As tightly as a hand holds a stone. And she holds him tightly only to throw him as far as possible. But the road will lead to that distance.

22. You are the task. Not a single student around.

23. In the presence of a real opponent, boundless courage is instilled in you.

24. To understand what a blessing it is that the soil on which you stand cannot be more than your two feet can cover.

25. How can you be happy in the world? Unless you run into it.

26. There is no number of shelters, there is only one salvation, but again there are as many possibilities of salvation as there are shelters.

There is a goal, but no path; what we called the path is procrastination.

27. To do negative things is still entrusted to us; the positive has already been given to us.

28. Once you allow evil into yourself, it no longer requires that you believe it.

29. The second thoughts with which you allow evil into yourself are not your thoughts, but those of evil.

The animal takes the whip from the master and whips itself to become the master, but it does not know that this is only a fantasy caused by a new knot on the master's whip.

30. Goodness is, in a sense, bleak.

31. I don't strive for self-control. Self-control means willing to act in some random place of the endless emanations of my spiritual personality. And if I have to enclose myself in such circles, I prefer to do it inactively, simply marveling at this monstrous totality and taking home only the reinforcement that, contrato, this look provides.

32. The crows claim that a single crow can destroy the sky. This is beyond doubt, but cannot serve as an argument against heaven, for heaven precisely means the impossibility of crows.

33. The martyrs do not underestimate the body, they try to exalt it on the cross. In this they are united with their opponents.

34. His fatigue was that of a gladiator after a fight; his job consisted of whitewashing the corner of the office room.

35. There is no possession, there is only being, only being thirsting for its last breath, thirsting to suffocate.

36. Previously, I didn’t understand why I didn’t get an answer to my question, today I don’t understand how I could think that it was possible to ask. But I didn’t even think, I just asked.

37. His response to the assertion that he may have possession, but does not exist, was only trembling and heart palpitations.

38. Someone was surprised at how easy it was for him to walk the path of eternity; and he rushed headlong down this path.

39a. Evil cannot be paid in installments - but they are constantly trying.

It can be assumed that Alexander the Great, despite the military successes of his youth, despite the excellent army that he created, despite the forces striving to change the world that he felt within himself, would have stopped at the Hellespont and would never have crossed it, and not from fear, not from indecision, not because of weak will, but because of earthly heaviness.

39b. The path is endless, nothing can be subtracted, nothing can be added, and yet everyone puts their child’s yardstick to it. “Of course, you must go this far, this will count for you.”

1. It is not difficult to love someone who leaves.

2. You look too much for help from others. Don't you notice that this help is not real?

3. The amount of work does not at all determine the degree of importance of the matter.

4. You are looking for meaning, but you create such nonsense that you can’t even come up with it.

5. Communication with people seduces you into introspection.

6. ...there are times when you can suddenly hear a verdict unexpectedly, from anyone, at any time.

7. Human strength is sufficient to a certain extent; Who is to blame that this particular limit plays a decisive role?

8. Don’t pay attention to anyone, do what you think is right.

9. It is relatively easy to trust someone if you follow him or at least have the opportunity to follow him; you can even trust from afar...

10. The probability that everything is lost is even more incredible than the most incredible probability!

11. And this does not mean that you are used to everything; you cannot become so dull as to get used to everything.

12. Just don’t stop halfway, this is the most pointless thing not only in business, but in general, always and everywhere.

13. The court does not need anything from you. The court accepts you when you come and releases you when you leave.

14. How suicidal happiness can be!

15. Life distracts our attention all the time; and we don’t even have time to notice why exactly.

16. Guilt itself attracts justice.

17. It seems I wanted to sign “Yours” again? There is nothing more deceitful than such a signature. No, my own and forever devoted only to myself, that’s who I am and I have to try to get used to this kind of self.

18. This evening, out of boredom, I washed my hands in the bathroom three times in a row.

19. You won’t win the process by worrying.

20. Theoretically, there is the complete possibility of happiness: to believe in something indestructible in oneself and not strive for it.

21. He was irresistibly drawn to seek new meetings and acquaintances, but every new acquaintance only aggravated his fatigue.

22.
“It’s strange,” said Fräulein Bürstner, “it’s strange that I have to forbid you exactly what you yourself should have forbidden.”

23. “If I were an outsider observing me and the course of my life, I would have to say that everything should end in vain, be wasted in incessant doubts, inventive only in self-torture. But, as an interested person, I live in hope. "

24. Sin always comes openly and is felt immediately. It goes on its own roots and does not need to be pulled out.

25. There are two main human sins, from which all others flow: impatience and negligence. Because of impatience, people are expelled from paradise, because of negligence they do not return there. Or maybe there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.

26. “Whoever allows the process to happen loses it.”

27... I’m tired, I don’t know anything and I would just like to bury my face in your lap, feel your hand on my hair and stay like that forever.

28. This early rise, he thought, could make you completely crazy. A person must get enough sleep.

29. I am as if made of stone, I am like a tombstone to myself, there is not even a crack for doubt or faith, for love or disgust, for courage or fear of something specific or in general - only shaky hope lives on; barren, like the inscriptions on tombstones.

30. You look too much for help from others.... Don't you notice that this help is not real?

31. “I’ll take it so you don’t think you’re missing out on anything.”

32. Even the night moth, a pitiful insect, with the onset of day looks for a quiet place where to lie down and freeze, dreaming of completely disappearing and suffering because it is impossible to disappear.

33. A free person is always superior to a bound one.

34.
- Tell me: doesn’t it seem to you that she is somehow especially smart?
- It seems to me that she is somehow especially unhappy.

35. Communication with people seduces you into introspection.

36. Everything is fantasy: family, service, friends, street; everything is a fantasy, more distant or closer, and the wife is a fantasy; the closest truth is that you are banging your head against the wall of a cell in which there are no windows or doors.

37. He who loves his neighbor in the world commits no greater or less injustice than he who loves himself in the world. The only question that remains is whether the former is possible.

38. Getting married, starting a family, accepting all children born, keeping them in this unstable world and even leading them forward - this, in my opinion, is the greatest benefit that is given to a person. The fact that many people seem to succeed in this easily cannot serve as an objection, because, firstly, not many actually succeed, and secondly, these few for the most part do not “achieve”, but it just “happens” to them; True, it is not the “greatest” good, but still something very important and very honorable (especially since here it is impossible to completely separate “they achieve” from “happens”).

39. To say that you left me would be very unfair, but it is true that I am abandoned, sometimes terribly abandoned.

40. The contempt of the police is much better than their attentiveness.

41. You couldn’t hear the door slam shut - they probably left it open, as happens in apartments where a great misfortune has happened.

42. They attacked a man in bed, and they also expect him to be in a tailcoat!

43.
- But when do you sleep?
- Yes, I’m sleeping! I will sleep when I complete my education. In the meantime, I drink black coffee.

45. When I start writing again after a while, it’s as if I’m pulling every word out of the void.

46. ​​“Do as you please. For me, you are free to do whatever you want. You are an adult. How can I advise you?” And all this with an unpleasant, hoarse note of anger and complete condemnation, from which I now tremble less than in childhood, because the boundless feeling of childhood guilt has been partially replaced by an understanding of our mutual helplessness.

47. “Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even those who demand it) are like moneylenders: they are willing to risk their capital just to get interest.”

48. Officials are an educated people, but one-sided; in their specialty, each can deduce a whole series of thoughts from one word, but you can explain to him for hours what concerns another department, and he will only nod his head politely, but will not understand a word.

49. Happiness excludes old age. He who retains the ability to see beauty does not grow old.

50.Everything, including lies, serves the truth. The shadows don't extinguish the sun.

51. How can we, given the absolute senselessness of the entire system as a whole, avoid the most terrible corruption of officials?

52. If what was supposedly destroyed in paradise could be destroyed, it means that it did not have a decisive significance; and if it didn’t give in, then it means we live in a false faith.

53. In the struggle between yourself and the world, stay on the side of the world.

54. Calm reflection is much more useful than impulses of despair.

55. But you always think that you can overcome the disease on your feet.

56. I only become afraid of danger when I consider it necessary.

57. ...an ignorant person acts more boldly...to an ignorant person everything seems possible.

58. The cage went to look for the bird.

59. Well, why, why am I a man, with all the torments of this most unclear and terribly responsible state. Why am I, for example, not a happy closet in your room, which directly looks at you when you are sitting in a chair or at a desk, or lying on the sofa, or sleeping. Why am I not a closet?

60. The true path follows a rope that is not stretched high, but above the ground itself. It seems designed more to be tripped over than to be walked on.

61. When a sword pierces your soul, your task is to look calmly, not bleed, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. And thanks to this blow, become invulnerable after it.

62.
“Very nice,” Clara finally said, but Karl understood: the world had not yet invented a polite formula to thank for such an ugly game.

63. Everything in the world has to do with the court.

64. Of course, anyone can call themselves big if they want

65. Sometimes shackles are better than freedom.

66. You know, employees always know more than their superiors.

67. No one living alone is responsible for their evenings. After all, you are afraid of a lot. You are afraid that one fine day your physicality will disappear, that people really are what they seem in the twilight, that you will not be able to walk without a stick, that maybe you should go to church and pray out loud so that they will look at you and you found a body.

68. I will try to gradually compile a list of what is undeniable in me, then - probably, then - perhaps, etc. The thirst for books in me is undeniable. No, I don’t crave to own them or read them, but to see them, to be convinced in front of a bookseller’s window that they exist. If there are several copies of one book lying around somewhere, I am happy with each of them. This thirst is like a misdirected feeling of hunger, it seems to come from the stomach.

69. Probably, by nature I am not at all predisposed to laziness, but I had nothing to do. Where I lived, I was rejected, condemned, destroyed, and although trying to escape somewhere cost me enormous effort, it was not work, because we were talking about the impossible, unattainable - with a few exceptions - for my strength.

70. ...like a child who pulls the entire tablecloth from the table when he likes something on the table, but in the end he gets only shards and hopes, smashed to dust and lost forever.

71. But if I were missing an upper lip here, an ear there, a rib here, a finger there, if there were hairless spots on my head, and pock marks on my face, this would not yet be a sufficient semblance of my internal imperfection.

72. He may not be a bad person, but he is a fool and a dreamer

73. At least compared to you, we are free people, and this is a considerable advantage.

74. The verdict is not pronounced immediately, but the proceedings gradually develop into a verdict.

75. Women have enormous power. If I could influence some women I know and they would work together in my favor, I would achieve a lot.

76. The cage went out in search of the bird.

77. A person tormented by his demons completely unconsciously takes revenge on his neighbor.

78. Today I don’t even dare to reproach myself. If they sounded on this empty day, they would have a disgusting echo.

79. “Was he an animal if music moved him so much?”

80. His own frontal bone blocks his path, he bruises his forehead against his own forehead.

81. And this tightness inside me, this darkness through which nothing is visible. I am like a living lattice, a lattice that stands but is about to fall.

82. You are looking for meaning, but you create such nonsense that you can’t even come up with it.

83. You are mine, even if I never see you.

84. Everyone feels the need to ask.

85. Thus, in principle, I am no different from other dogs, which is why, with any difference of opinion or hostility, in essence, any dog ​​will recognize me, just as I, for my part, will not fail to do the same with it . They differ only in the proportion of the starting substances, which is very significant in personal terms, but does not matter in ethnic terms.

86. Higher goals, if they are achievable at all, require the highest efforts.

87. “I must go, you must hunt,” I said, “everyone must.” Do you even understand why we always owe something?” “No,” she said, “and you don’t need to understand this, it’s all natural and self-evident.”

88. Freedom! There are no words, the freedom possible these days is a stunted plant. But whatever it is, it’s freedom, whatever it is, it’s property...

89. I hide from people not because I want to live in peace, but because I want to die in peace.

90. Evil is sometimes in the hand, like a weapon; recognized or unrecognized, it, without contradiction, allows itself to be put aside, if there is the will to do so.

91. Written kisses do not reach their destination - ghosts drink them along the way. Thanks to this abundant food, they also multiply in unprecedented numbers. Humanity feels this and is trying to fight it; in order to eliminate as much as possible any illusory nature between people and to achieve the naturalness of communication, this peace of mind, it invented the railway, cars, airplanes, but nothing helps, these discoveries were clearly made already at the moment of the crash, and the enemy is much stronger and more confident, he follows after the post office he invented the telegraph, telephone, and radio. Ghosts are not in danger of starvation, but we will die.

92.
"- There are people there! Can you imagine, they don’t sleep at all!
- Why aren’t they sleeping?
- Because they don’t get tired.
- Why don’t they get tired?
- Because they are fools.
- Why don’t fools get tired?
“Why should they be tired?”

93. This terrain prevents me from thinking, because of it my reasoning sways like chain bridges in a furious current. She is beautiful and therefore wants to be looked at.
I close my eyes and say: you, green mountain by the river, you who have rolling stones against the water, you are beautiful.
But she is not happy, she wants me to open my eyes and look at her.

94.
“No,” said the priest, “you don’t have to accept everything as truth, you just need to realize the necessity of everything.”
- Sad conclusion! - said K. - Lies are built into a system.

95. Was he an animal if music excited him so much?

96. What a people! Do they think at all - or are they just mindlessly shuffling their feet on the ground?

97. Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even those who demand it) are like moneylenders: they willingly risk their capital in order to receive interest.

98. ...every previous experience is ever refuted by a new one...

99. All officials are irritated, even when they seem outwardly calm.

100. Even just sitting and waiting is a terrible tension.