Franz Kafka

"“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.”"

"“The meaning of life is that it stops.”"

"One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party."

"My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted."

"People who walk across dark bridges, past saints,with dim, small lights. Clouds which move across gray skiespast churcheswith towers darkened in the dusk. One who leans against granite railinggazing into the evening waters,His hands resting on old stones."

"You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind-- for everyone wants to live as long as he is alive-- even the degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing. Writing that springs from the surface of existence-- when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up-- is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough."

"All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue."

"Isolation is a way to know ourselves."

"Life is hard, the earth stubborn, science rich in knowledge but poor in practical results."

"I look a girl in the eye and it was a very long love story with thunder and kisses and lightning. I live fast."

"Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted."

"You have given me a gift such as I never even dreamt of finding in this life."

"But all remains unchanged."

"She is so distinct to me, it's as though I had run my hands all over her."

"The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer."

"What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness."

"Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment."

"It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves."

"Did he really want this warm room of his, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be transformed into a cave, in which, no doubt, he would be free to crawl about unimpeded in all directions, but only at the price of rapidly and completely forgetting his human past at the same time?"

"One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so."