Google
|
The quotations are arranged by author name.
Current counts: Authors: 8,146. Quotations: 38,970
Select the first character of the author's last name that you want to look at:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
|
| Franz Kafka
"Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible," she said, "but that alone doesn't make it true." A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it. All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue. All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog. Anyone who cannot come to terms with his 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 note down what he sees among the ruins. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. {from the short story, 'The Metamorphosis'} Books are a narcotic. By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair. Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. Evil is whatever distracts. From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached. From the true antagonist, illimitable courage is transmitted to you. God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. His weariness is that of the gladiator after the combat; his work was the whitewashing of a corner in a state official's office. I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things. I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy. If the French were German in their essence, then how the Germans would admire them! In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing. In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world. In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it. It is your people who make the ultimate difference. You put the investment into training the people and then, when you get invited to the party with the big boys, that is a unique selling point. It's often safer to be in chains than to be free. Leopards break into the temple and drink the sacrificial chalices dry; this occurs repeatedly, again and again; finally it can be reckoned upon beforehand and becomes part of the ceremony. Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins. May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air. My "fear" is my substance, and probably the best part of me. No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth. Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore. One must not cheat anybody, not even the world of one's triumph. Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before. So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being. Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable. The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc. The meaning of life is that it stops. There will be no proof that I ever was a writer. This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the tree of life. What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself. Writing is a sweet, wonderful reward. You are free and that is why you are lost. You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid. You may object that it is not a trial at all; you are quite right, for it is only a trial if I recognize it as such. Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. |
|
Sports Quotations.
Show Business Quotations.
|