Franz Kafka's best quotes (with sources)
The top 3 according to 1 vote: The longer you hesitate at the door, the more of a stranger you become. · A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. · Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.. (Updated Mar 22, 2024.)
Kafka's most famous lines from The Trial, his diaries, his letters and his aphorisms, each with the work and date. Only sourced quotes, nothing second-hand.
Automatically translated (original in Deutsch). See the original
Top 14
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1
The longer you hesitate at the door, the more of a stranger you become.
Homecoming.
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2
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 January 1904.
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3
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.
First sentence of The Trial (1925).
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4
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope and the True Way, 5.
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5
In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.
Reflections, 52.
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6
Germany has declared war on Russia. – Swimming school in the afternoon.
Diaries, 2 August 1914.
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7
Don't spend time looking for the obstacle; maybe there isn't one.
Fragments from notebooks and loose sheets, 1920.
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8
There is a goal, but no way; what we call the way is hesitation.
Reflections, 26.
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9
Some books act like a key to unknown rooms in one's own castle.
Letter to Oskar Pollak, 9 November 1903.
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10
The lie is made into the order of the world.
K. in The Trial, chapter 9.
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11
I am unpunctual because I do not feel the pain of waiting. I wait like an ox.
Diaries, 18 December 1911.
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12
There are possibilities for me, certainly; but under what stone do they lie?
Diaries, 12 January 1914.
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13
The spirit only becomes free when it ceases to be a prop.
Reflections, 78.
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14
What I have accomplished is only a success of being alone.
Diaries, 21 July 1913.
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 14… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
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15
Love is that you are the knife with which I dig into myself.
Letter to Milena, 14 September 1920.
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