51 quotes
If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything
The Castle (1926)
All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog. If one could but realize this knowledge, if one could but bring it into the light of day, if we dogs would but own that we know infinitely more than we admit to ourselves!
The Complete Stories (1971)
Evil knows of the Good, but Good does not know of Evil. Knowledge of oneself is something only Evil has. - The First Octavo Notebook
The Blue Octavo Notebooks (1954)
A man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares.
Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.
The Complete Stories (1971)
"Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.
The Trial (1920)
"Hey, there’s something falling down in there," said the chief clerk. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that what had happened to him might some day also happen to the chief clerk. There was no denying that anything was possible.
The Metamorphosis (1915)
The Revolution evaporates, and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
Attributed
One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.
Misattributed
By believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
Misattributed to Kafka in Ambiguous Spaces (2008)
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
Misattributed
We met a large group of workmen who were marching with flags and banners to a meeting.
Kafka said, "These people are so self-possessed, so self-confident and good humoured. They rule the streets, and therefore think they rule the world. In fact, they are mistaken. Behind them already are the secretaries, officials, professional politicians, all the modern satraps for whom they are preparing the way to power."
"You do not believe in the power of the masses?"
"It is before my eyes, this power of the masses, formless and apparently chaotic, which then seeks to be given a form and a discipline. At the end of every truly revolutionary development there appears a Napoleon Bonaparte."
"You don"t believe in a wider expansion of the Russian Revolution?"
Kafka was silent for a moment, then he said:
"As a flood spreads wider and wider, the water becomes shallower and dirtier. The Revolution evaporates, and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. The chains of tormented mankind are made out of red tape."
Attributed