Franz Quotes & Sayings

The first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which already showed ten o'clock. — Franz Kafka

Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one's ears and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall. — Franz Kafka

It was half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards. — Franz Kafka

There is only one heart in my body, have mercy
on me. — Franz Wright

Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action. — Franz Kafka

Yet even if I manage that, one single slip, and a slip cannot be avoided, will stop the whole process, easy and painful alike, and I will have to shrink back into my own circle again. — Franz Kafka

Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail. — Franz Grillparzer

It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. — Franz Kafka

You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering that you could have avoided. — Franz Kafka

Do you think that it is possible to have a mere taste of commonness? Either one hates it or makes common cause with it. — Franz Grillparzer

Most men are not wicked ... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers. — Franz Kafka

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond. — Franz Kafka

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world. — Franz Kafka

Our winters are very long here, very long and very monotonous. But we don't complain about it downstairs, we're shielded against the winter. Oh, spring does come eventually, and summer, and they last for a while, but now, looking back, spring and summer seem too short, as if they were not much more than a couple of days, and even on those days, no matter how lovely the day, it still snows occasionally. — Franz Kafka

Possession means nothing when the opponent takes its chances — Franz Beckenbauer

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. — Franz Kafka

It is of course quite a different matter when a seeker, no longer satisfied with materialism or dogma and yearning for spiritual nourishment, asks an initiate for advice and enlightenment. In such an instance the initiate is duty bound to enlighten the seeker in accordance with his perceptive faculties. The magician should spare neither time nor effort to communicate his spiritual treasures to the seeker and lead him towards the light. — Franz Bardon

Milena - what a rich heavy name, almost too full to be lifted, and in the beginning I didn't like it much, it seemed to me a Greek or Roman gone astray in Bohemia, violated by Czech, cheated of its accent, and yet in colour and form it is marvellously a woman, a woman whom one carries in one's arms out of the world, and out of the fire, I don't know which, and she presses herself willingly and trustingly into your arms. — Franz Kafka

Love is a battle," said Marie-Claude, still smiling. "And I plan to go on fighting. To the end."
Love is a battle?" said Franz. "Well, I don't feel at all like fighting." And he left. — Milan Kundera

In 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian imperial heir, was shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. Do you know the motive behind the act?
It was in retaliation for the subjugation of the Sebs in Austria.
It was not.Franz Ferdinand had stated his intention to introduce reforms favorable to the Serbs in his empire. Had he survived to ascend the throne, he would have made a revolution unnecessary. In plain terms, he was killed because he was going to give the rebels what they were shouting for. They needed a despot in the palace in order to seize it.
What's good for reform is bad for the reformers — Loren D. Estleman

He had probably been thrown out of a wine shop, and it hadn't quite dawned on him yet. — Kafka, Franz

For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing and sigh, to recreate them in accordance with his own consciousness. In this way he, like the composer, is a creator, for he must have within himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life. — Franz Liszt

For many people it is depressing even to move house. A lost fragment of life always remains. To move to another town, settle in a foreign country, is for everyone a major decision. But, to be suddenly driven forth, within twenty-four hours, from one's home, one's work, the reward of years of steady industry. To become a helpless prey of help. To be sent defenceless out to Asiatic highroads, with several thousand miles of dust, stones, and morass before one. To know that one will never again find a decently human habitation, never again sit down to a proper table. Yet this is all nothing. To be more shackled than any convict. To be counted as outside the law, a vagabond, whom anyone has the right to kill unpunished. — Franz Werfel

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

Rugby is a different game. There is an interruption every two minutes also in American football. Our soccer is a moving game: play, play, play, move, move - you don't interrupt. — Franz Beckenbauer

The worries that are the burden of which the privileged person makes an excuse in dealing with the oppressed person are in fact the worries about preserving his privileged condition. — Franz Kafka

For example, Michael Jordan earns $100million a year but continues to play basketball and remains a modest human being. — Franz Beckenbauer

I am dirty, Milena, endlessly dirty, that is why I make such a fuss about cleanliness. None sing as purely as those in deepest hell; it is their singing we take for the singing of angels. — Franz Kafka

They did not know what we can now sense as we contemplate the course of history: that change begins in the soul before it shows in our lives ... — Franz Kafka

The state has no religion for the simple reason that it has each and everyone. — Franz Grillparzer

Before passing different laws for different people, I'd relinquish myself unto you as your slave. — Franz Grillparzer

16 February. Can't see my way clear. As though everything I possessed had escaped me, and as though it would hardly satisfy me if it all returned. — Franz Kafka

The guitar is a wonderful instrument which is understood by few. — Franz Schubert

A lot of development has always been informally subsidized. When a system administrator writes a network analysis tool to help him do his job, then posts it online and gets bug fixes and feature contributions from other system administrators, what's happened is that an unofficial consortium has been formed. — Karl Franz Fogel

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. — Franz Kafka

Now I have demonstrated, that the convolutions of the brain are nothing but the peripheric expansion of the bundles of which it is composed; consequently the convolutions of the brain must be recognized as the parts in which the instincts, sentiments, propensities are exercised; and, in general the moral and intellectual forces. — Franz Joseph Gall

We come to mistake the crumbs of mercy for the feast of love — Franz Kafka

Sometimes in his arrogance he has more anxiety for the world than for himself. — Franz Kafka

I repeat: there was no attraction for me in imitating human beings; I imitated them because I needed a way out, and for no other reason. — Franz Kafka

Extraordinary,' said the Burgomaster, 'extraordinary. And now do you think of staying here in Riva with us?'
'I think not', said the Hunter with a smile, and, to excuse himself, he laid his hand on the Burgomaster's knee. 'I am here, more than that I do not know, further than that I cannot go. My ship has no rudder, and it is driven by the wind that blows in the undermost regions of death.'
("The Hunter Gracchus") — Franz Kafka

I am a woman, and even if I could proceed with harshness and rigidity, it would disgust me nonetheless. — Franz Grillparzer

It is truly no feat to crack a nut, and therefore no one would think to gather an audience for the purpose of entertaining them with nutcracking. But if he should do so, and if he should succeed in his aim, then it cannot be a matter of mere nutcracking. Or alternatively, it is a matter of nutcracking, but as it turns out we have overlooked the art of nutcracking because we were so proficient at it that it is this new nutcracker who is the first to demonstrate what it actually entails, whereby it could be even more effective if he were less expert in nutcracking than the majority of us. — Franz Kafka

Ambiguity distracts the conscious mind. — Franz Anton Mesmer II

This afternoon the pain occasioned by my loneliness came upon me so piercingly and intensely that I became aware that the strength which I gain through this writing thus spends itself, a strength which I certainly have not intended for this purpose. — Franz Kafka

The ideas and practices of Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th-century Australian healer, had spread to the United States and, by the 1840s, held the country in thrall. Mesmer proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body, was governed by a 'magnetic fluid' that could become imbalanced, causing illness. — Karen Abbott

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed.
At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc.
Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm. — Franz Kafka

All these preparations clearly show that a human being must perfect himself in the physical world through his magical development in order to be prepared for the higher astral world after death. — Franz Bardon

But the condemned man looked so submissively doglike that it seemed as if he might have been allowed to run free on the slopes and would only need to be whistled for when the execution was due to begin. — Franz Kafka

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

They linked arms with him in a way K. had never walked with anyone before — Franz Kafka

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

What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense. — Franz Kafka

The difficulties (which other people surely find incredible) I have in speaking to people arise from the fact that my thinking, or rather the content of my consciousness, is entirely nebulous, that I remain undisturbed by this, so far as it concerns only myself, and am even occasionally self-satisfied; yet conversation with people demands pointedness, solidity, and sustained coherence, qualities not to be found in me. No one will want to lie in clouds of mist with me, and even if someone did, I couldn't expel the mist from my head; when two people come together it dissolves of itself and is nothing. — Franz Kafka

The moment is supreme. — Franz Schubert

You must not pay too much attention to opinions. The written word is unalterable, and opinions are often only an expression of despair. — Franz Kafka

Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said. — Franz Kafka

K.'s uncle, who had already been made very angry by the long wait, turned abruptly round and retorted, "Ill? You say he's ill?" and strode towards the gentleman in a way that seemed almost threatening, as if he were the illness himself. — Franz Kafka

Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist. — Franz Liszt

This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning. — Franz Boas

Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don't find yourself. — Franz Kafka

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one. — Jon Krakauer

For Kafka, paradise wasn't a place where people lived in the past and of which a memory has survived, but rather a perennial, hidden presence. In every moment, an immense, encompassing obstacle prevents us from seeing it. That obstacle is nothing other than the expulsion from paradise - a process Kafka called eternal in its principal aspect. — Franz Kafka

Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it renders everything asunder, the wall, and the bonds and its very self. — Kafka, Franz

What is written is merely the dregs of experience. — Franz Kafka

People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them. — Franz Grillparzer

Go on caring for me. — Franz Kafka

I am free and that is why I am lost. — Franz Kafka

Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. — Franz Kafka

It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty. — Franz Grillparzer

I wanted to escape the unrest, to shut out the voices around me and within me, so I write. — Franz Kafka

A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances. — Franz Liszt

Let the future sleep for now, as it deserves. If you wake it too early, you get a groggy present. — Franz Kafka

My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury. — Franz Liszt

The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake ... can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake. — Franz Boas

Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living. — Franz Kafka

When I am not reading Kafka I am thinking about Kafka. When I am not thinking about Kafka I miss thinking about him. Having missed thinking about him for a while, I take him out and read him again. That's how it works. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Jung even asserted that he would have no objection to regarding the psyche as a quality of matter and matter as a concrete aspect of the psyche, provided that the psyche was understood to be the collective unconscious. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

If the empire were to collapse, I should personally feel extremely sad. I absolutely do not believe that the personal rule of Napoleon III has been corrupting and oppressive for France-but quite the contrary, it is demonstrably necessary, conciliatory, progressive, and generally intelligent and democratic in the best sense of the word. — Franz Liszt

I never wish to be easily defined. — Franz Kafka

Love is a drama of contradictions. — Franz Kafka

In the fight between you and the world, back the world. — Franz Kafka

I understand the phrase "Honor the Women" all too well: the poet has probably a wife of his own, but he prefers to honor another. — Franz Grillparzer

The blend of absurd, surreal and mundane which gave rise to the adjective kafkaesque — Franz Kafka

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill. — Franz Liszt

Compilers resemble gluttonous eaters who devour excessive quantities of healthy food just to excrete them as refuse. — Franz Grillparzer

There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness." Franz Kafka — Jason Harvey

Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the
sane; thank You for letting me know what this is
like. Thank You for letting me look at your frightening
blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without
terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly
lost
with this love — Franz Wright

Is it true that one travels in order to know mankind? It is easier to get to know other people at home, but abroad one gets to know oneself. — Franz Grillparzer

But you get used to the air alright in the end. When you're here for the second or third time you'll hardly notice how oppressive the air is. — Franz Kafka

When Alex left for Alaska," Franz remembers, "I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the shoulder of that one; I told him that boy was special. But he let Alex die. So on December 26, when I learned what happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdrew my church membership and became an atheist. I decided I couldn't believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex. After I dropped off the hitchhikers," Franz continues," I turned my van around, drove back to the store, and bought a bottle of whiskey. And then I went out into the desert and drank it. I wasn't used to drinking, so it made me real sick. Hoped it'd kill me, but it didn't. Just made me real, real sick. — Jon Krakauer

One hears a great many things, true, but can gather nothing definite. — Franz Kafka

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more. — Franz Kafka

A man endures misfortune without complaint. — Franz Schubert

Lap-dogs and blood-hounds enjoy the greatest respect at court; house-dogs and no dogs at all are not even considered. — Franz Grillparzer

No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics. — Franz Boas

The poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man — Franz Kafka

Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a ques-tion he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insati-able." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admit-tance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it. — Franz Kafka

Traditions are lovely thingsto create traditions, that is, not to live off them. — Franz Marc

It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself. So — Franz Kafka