Top 500 Franz Kafka Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “I waver, continually fly to the summit of the mountain, but cannot stay up there for more than a moment. Others waver too, but in lower regions, with greater strength; if they are in danger of falling, they are caught up by the kinsman who walks beside them for that purpose. But I waver on the heights; it is not death, alas, but the eternal torments of dying.”

— Franz Kafka

252. “The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.”

— Franz Kafka

253. “The fact that there is nothing but a spiritual world deprives us of hope and gives us certainty.”

— Franz Kafka

254. “What is gayer than believing in a household god?”

— Franz Kafka

255. “Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.”

— Franz Kafka

256. “It’s impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill.”

— Franz Kafka

257. “I can never tear myself open wide enough to people to reveal everything and so frighten them away.”

— Franz Kafka

258. “The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.”

— Franz Kafka

259. “For humans the idea of freedom is all too often a means of deceiving themselves. And although freedom is among the most exalted of feelings, so is the illusion of freedom among the most exalted of illusions.”

— Franz Kafka

260. “You, who can’t do anything, think you can bring off something like that? How can you even dare to think about it? If you were capable of it, you certainly wouldn’t be in need of it.”

— Franz Kafka

261. “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.”

— Franz Kafka

262. “But what now if all the peace, the comfort, the contentment were to come to a horrible end?”

— Franz Kafka

263. “At the expense of Gregor’s sacrifice, the sister, at the end of the story, stretches her arrogant body and gets the liberation Gregor longed for. Under Gregor’s care first, and then her parents’, the sister enjoys a healthy childhood, one leading to physical and mental development, and one in which she isn’t trapped. Yet our loyalty to Gregor extends even beyond death, and his sister’s cheery success story offers but a bitter pill.”

— Franz Kafka

264. “Ich schreibe anders als ich rede, ich rede anders als ich denke, ich denke anders als ich denken soll und so geht es weiter bis ins tiefste Dunkel.”

— Franz Kafka

265. “One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.”

— Franz Kafka

266. “Since I met you, I’ve felt abandoned without your nearness; your nearness is all I ever dream of, the only thing.”

— Franz Kafka

267. “Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.”

— Franz Kafka

268. “My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.”

— Franz Kafka

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

— Franz Kafka

270. “No one sings as purely as those who inhabit the deepest hell – what we take to be the song of angels is their song.”

— Franz Kafka

271. “My life was sweeter than other people’s and my death will be more terrible by the same degree.”

— Franz Kafka

272. “Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.”

— Franz Kafka

273. “I am as I am, and that’s all there is to it, I can hardly take a pair of scissors to myself, and cut out a different person...”

— Franz Kafka

274. “Adam’s first domestic pet after the expulsion from Paradise was the serpent.”

— Franz Kafka

275. “You too have weapons.”

— Franz Kafka

276. “The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you.”

— Franz Kafka

277. “Anyone who cannot cope with 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 jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor.”

— Franz Kafka

278. “Asking questions were the most important thing.”

— Franz Kafka

279. “Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.”

— Franz Kafka

280. “I can’t hold enough of you in my hands.”

— Franz Kafka

281. “Anyone who renounces the world must love all men, for he renounces their world too. He thus begins to have some inkling of the true nature of man, which cannot but be loved, always assuming that one is its peer.”

— Franz Kafka

282. “Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.”

— Franz Kafka

283. “How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?”

— Franz Kafka

284. “Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.”

— Franz Kafka

285. “The gesture of rejection with which I was forever met did not mean: ‘I do not love you,’ but: ‘You cannot love me, much as you would like; you are unhappily in love with your love for me, but your love for me is not in love with you.’ It is consequently incorrect to say that I have known the words, ‘I love you’; I have known only the expectant stillness that should have been broken by my ‘I love you,’ that is all that I have known, nothing more.”

— Franz Kafka

286. “I am away from home and must always write home, even if any home of mine has long since floated away into eternity.”

— Franz Kafka

287. “Incidentally, it’s easy to write prescriptions, but difficult to come to an understanding with people.”

— Franz Kafka

288. “The man in ecstasy and the man drowning – both throw up their arms. The first to signify harmony, the second to signify strife with the elements.”

— Franz Kafka

289. “Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates.”

— Franz Kafka

290. “I like to make use of what I know.”

— Franz Kafka

291. “Every word first looks around in every direction before letting itself be written down by me.”

— Franz Kafka

292. “Anyone who loves his neighbor within the limits of the world is doing no more and no less injustice than someone who loves himself within the limits of the world.”

— Franz Kafka

293. “Devilish in my innocence.”

— Franz Kafka

294. “Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves and is ready to release what lies deeper.”

— Franz Kafka

295. “He had indeed been so close to forgetting that only the voice of the mother, so long unheard, brought him to his senses.”

— Franz Kafka

296. “Look at this, Willem, he admits he doesn’t know the law and at the same time insists he’s innocent.”

— Franz Kafka

297. “And I close my eyes to gaze into those depths, and am almost engulfed in you.”

— Franz Kafka

298. “One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.”

— Franz Kafka

299. “Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man.”

— Franz Kafka

300. “I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”

— Franz Kafka