Background Image

...

"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

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

"don't You Want To

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Franz Kafka

The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head. But How Free Myself And Free It Without Being Torn To Pieces. And A Thousand Times Rather Be Torn To Pieces Than Retain It In Me Or Bury It. That, Indeed, Is Why I Am Here, That Is Quite Clear To Me.

Everyone Strives To Attain The Law,' Answers The Man, 'how Does It Come About, Then, That In All These Years No One Has Come Seeking Admittance But Me?' The Doorkeeper Perceives That The Man Is Nearing His End And His Hearing Is Failing, So He Bellows In His Ear: 'no One But You Could Gain Admittance Through This Door, Since This Door Was Intended For You. I Am Now Going To Shut It.

Last Night I Dreamed About You. What Happened In Detail I Can Hardly Remember, All I Know Is That We Kept Merging Into One Another. I Was You, You Were Me. Finally You Somehow Caught Fire.

He Is Terribly Afraid Of Dying Because He Hasn’t Yet Lived.

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.

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!

To Write Prescriptions Is Easy, But To Come To An Understanding With People Is Hard.

Sleep Is The Most Innocent Creature There Is And A Sleepless Man The Most Guilty.

But Eternity Is Not Temporality At A Standstill. What Is Oppressive About The Concept Of The Eternal Is The Justification, Incomprehensible To Us, That Time Must Undergo In Eternity And The Logical Conclusion Of That, The Justification Of Ourselves As We Are.

For Everything Outside The Phenomenal World, Language Can Only Be Used Allusively, But Never Even Approximately In A Comparative Way, Since, Corresponding As It Does To The Phenomenal World, It Is Concerned Only With Property And Its Relations.

Going To Pieces. To Go To Pieces So Pointlessly And Unnecessarily.

Atlas Was Permitted The Opinion That He Was At Liberty, If He Wished, To Drop The Earth And Creep Away; But This Opinion Was All That He Was Permitted.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

Torment Yourself As Little As Possible, Then You'll Torment Me Less.

To Animalise Is Humane, To Humanise Is Animal.

Idleness Is The Beginning Of All Vice, The Crown Of All Virtues.

People Who Walk Across Dark Bridges, Past Saints, With Dim, Small Lights. Clouds Which Move Across Gray Skies Past Churches With Towers Darkened In The Dusk. One Who Leans Against Granite Railing Gazing Into The Evening Waters, His Hands Resting On Old Stones.

I’m Tired, Can’t Think Of Anything And Want Only To Lay My Face In Your Lap, Feel Your Hand On My Head And Remain Like That Through All Eternity.

In A Way, I Was Safe Writing

The Founder Brought The Laws From The Lawgiver; The Faithful Are Meant To Announce The Laws To The Lawgiver.

The Truth Is Always An Abyss. One Must — As In A Swimming Pool — Dare To Dive From The Quivering Springboard Of Trivial Everyday Experience And Sink Into The Depths, In Order To Later Rise Again — Laughing And Fighting For Breath — To The Now Doubly Illuminated Surface Of Things.

You Are At Once Both The Quiet And The Confusion Of My Heart.

Celibacy And Suicide Are A Similar Levels Of Understanding, Suicide And A Martyr's Death Not So By Any Means, Perhaps Marriage And A Martyr's Death.

I'm Thinking Only Of My Illness And My Health, Though Both, The First As Well As The Second, Are You.

The Spirit Becomes Free Only When It Ceases To Be A Support.

Youth Is Happy Because It Has The Ability To See Beauty. Anyone Who Keeps The Ability To See Beauty Never Grows Old.

Inspirational Birthday

There's An Infinite Amount Of Hope But Not For Us.

In Me, By Myself, Without Human Relationship, There Are No Visible Lies. The Limited Circle Is Pure.

Test Yourself On Mankind. It Is Something That Makes The Doubter Doubt, The Believer Believe.

And In That Recurring Dream, I Found Myself Trapped In Some Sort Of Gigantic Game Of Which I Was Unfamiliar With The Rules; Lost In A Labyrinthine Town Of Dark And Damp, Criss-crossing Streets, Ambiguous Characters Of Uncertain Authority Having No Idea Of Why I Was There Nor What I Had To Do, And Where The First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Was The Wish To Die.

One Of The First Signs Of The Beginning Of Understanding Is The Wish To Die. This Life Appears Unbearable, Another Unattainable. One Is No Longer Ashamed Of Wanting To Die; One Asks To Be Moved From The Old Cell, Which One Hates, To A New One, Which One Willl Only In Time Come To Hate. In This There Is Also A Residue Of Belief That During The Move The Master Will Chance To Come Along The Corridor, Look At The Prisoner And Say: "this Man Is Not To Be Locked Up Again, He Is To Come With Me.

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.

The Diabolical Sometimes Assumes The Aspect Of The Good, Or Even Embodies Itself Completely In Its Form. If This Remains Concealedfrom Me, I Am Of Course Defeated, For This Good Is More Tempting Than The Genuine Good.

There's No Quiet Place Here On Earth For Our Love, Not In The Village And Not Anywhere Else, So I Picture A Grave, Deep And Narrow, In Which We Embrace As If Clamped Together, I Bury My Face Against You, You Yours Against Me, And No One Will Ever See Us.

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.

World Suffering

The More Horses You Yoke The Quicker Everything Will Go - Not The Rending Of The Block From Its Foundation, Which Is Impossible, But The Snapping Of The Traces And With That The Gay And Empty Journey.

I Am Always Trying To Convey Something That Can’t Be Conveyed, To Explain Something Which Is Inexplicable, To Tell About Something I Have In My Bones, Something Which Can Be Expressed Only In The Bones.

They Did Not Know What We Can Now Guess At, Contemplating The Course Of History: That Change Begins In The Soul Before It Appears In Ordinary Existence.

I Am Too Tired, I Must Try To Rest And Sleep, Otherwise I Am Lost In Every Respect. What An Effort To Keep Alive! Erecting A Monument Does Not Require An Expenditure Of So Much Strength.

Better To Have, And Not Need, Than To Need, And Not Have.

Disaster Preparedness

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.

Towards The Avoidance Of A Piece Of Verbal Confusion: What Is Intended To Be Actively Destroyed Must First Of All Have Been Firmly Grasped; What Crumbles Away Crumbles Away, But Cannot Be Destroyed.

It Is Strange How Little Sharpsightedness Women Possess; They Only Notice Whether They Please, Then Whether They Arouse Pity, And Finally, Whether You Look For Compassion From Them. That Is All; Come To Think Of It, It May Even Be Enough, Generally Speaking.

I Carry The Bars Within Me.

Life's Splendor Forever Lies In Wait About Each One Of Us In All Its Fullness, But Veiled From View, Deep Down, Invisible, Far Off. It Is There, Though, Not Hostile, Not Reluctant, Not Deaf. If You Summon It By The Right Word, By Its Right Name, It Will Come.

A Belief Is Like A Guillotine, Just As Heavy, Just As Light.

I Can’t Think Of Any Greater Happiness Than To Be With You All The Time, Without Interruption, Endlessly, Even Though I Feel That Here In This World There’s No Undisturbed Place For Our Love, Neither In The Village Nor Anywhere Else; And I Dream Of A Grave, Deep And Narrow, Where We Could Clasp Each Other In Our Arms As With Clamps, And I Would Hide My Face In You And You Would Hide Your Face In Me, And Nobody Would Ever See Us Any More.

Many A Book Is Like A Key To Unknown Chambers Within The Castle Of One’s Own Self.

Knowledge We Have. Anyone Who Strives For It With Particular Intensity Is Suspect Of Striving Against It.

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.

There Sat I, A Faded Being, Under Faded Leaves.

What's Happened To Me,' He Thought. It Was No Dream.

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.

The Man In Ecstasy And The Man Drowning: Both Raise Their Arms.

There Are Some Things One Can Only Achieve By A Deliberate Leap In The Opposite Direction.

They Were Offered The Choice Between Becoming Kings Or The Couriers Of Kings. The Way Children Would, They All Wanted To Be Couriers. Therefore There Are Only Couriers Who Hurry About The World, Shouting To Each Other - Since There Are No Kings - Messages That Have Become Meaningless. They Would Like To Put An End To This Miserable Life Of Theirs But They Dare Not Because Of Their Oaths Of Service.

For Words Are Magical Formulae. They Leave Finger Marks Be Hind On The Brain, Which In The Twinkling Of An Eye Become The Footprints Of History. One Ought To Watch One' S Every Word.

Hiding Places There Are Innumerable, Escape Is Only One, But Possibilities Of Escape, Again, Are As Many As Hiding Places.

The Purpose Of A Story Is To Be An Axe That Breaks Up The Ice Within Us.

In A Certain Sense The Good Is Comfortless.

Don Quixote's Misfortune Is Not His Imagination, But Sancho Panza.

"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.

My Grandfather Used To Say: Life Is Astoundingly Short. To Me, Looking Back Over It, Life Seems So Foreshortened That I Scarcely Understand, For Instance, How A Young Man Can Decide To Ride Over To The Next Village Without Being Afraid That -not To Mention Accidents- Even The Span Of A Normal Happy Life May Fall Far Short Of The Time Needed For Such A Journey.

Slept, Awoke, Slept, Awoke, Miserable Life.

From A Certain Point Onward There Is No Longer Any Turning Back. That Is The Point That Must Be Reached.

All I Am Is Literature, And I Am Not Able Or Willing To Be Anything Else.

Alas," Said The Mouse, "the Whole World Is Growing Smaller Every Day. At The Beginning It Was So Big That I Was Afraid, I Kept Running And Running, And I Was Glad When I Saw Walls Far Away To The Right And Left, But These Long Walls Have Narrowed So Quickly That I Am In The Last Chamber Already, And There In The Corner Stands The Trap That I Must Run Into." "you Only Need To Change Your Direction," Said The Cat, And Ate It Up.

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.

Every Thing That You Love, You Will Eventually Lose, But In The End, Love Will Return In A Different Form.

But Questions That Don’t Answer Themselves At The Very Moment Of Their Asking Are Never Answered.

Writer Speaks A Stench.

I Never Imagined That So Many Days Would Ultimately Make Such A Small Life.

Officials Are Highly Educated But One-sided; In His Own Department An Official Can Grasp Whole Trains Of Thought From A Single Word, But Let Him Have Something From Another Department Explained To Him ... He Won't Understand A Word Of It.

Train Of Thought

There Are Two Cardinal Human Sins Out Of Which All Others Derive, Deviate, And Dissipate: Impatience And Lassitude (or Perhaps Nonchalance). On Account Of Impatience They Are Driven Out Of Paradise; On Account Of Lassitude Or Nonchalance They Do Not Return. Perhaps, However, Only One Main Sense Of Sin Is Given: Impatience. On Account Of Impatience They Are Driven Out, On Account Of Impatience They Do Not Turn Back.

I No Longer Know If I Wish To Drown Myself In Love, Vodka Or The Sea.

Hold Fast To The Diary From Today On! Write Regularly! Don't Surrender! Even If No Salvation Should Come, I Want To Be Worthy Of It Every Moment.

No Matter How Much You Keep Encouraging Someone Who Is Blindfolded To Stare Through The Cloth, He Still Won’t See A Thing.".

Humility Provides Everyone, Even Him Who Despairs In Solitude, With The Strongest Relationship To His Fellow Man.

I Am A Retiring, Silent, Unsociable, And Discontent Person.

Everything Is Deception: Seeking The Minimum Of Illusion, Keeping Within The Ordinary Limitations, Seeking The Maximum. In The First Case One Cheats The Good, By Trying To Make It Too Easy For Oneself To Get It, And The Evil By Imposing All Too Unfavorable Conditions Of Warfare On It. In The Second Case One Cheats The Good By Keeping As Aloof From It As Possible, And The Evil By Hoping To Make It Powerless Through Intensifying It To The Utmost.

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.

One Advantage In Keeping A Diary Is That You Become Aware With Reassuring Clarity Of The Changes Which You Constantly Suffer.

Love Is A Drama Of Contradictions.

German Is My Mother Tongue And As Such More Natural To Me, But I Consider Czech Much More Affectionate, Which Is Why Your Letter Removes Several Uncertainties; I See You More Clearly, The Movements Of Your Body, Your Hands, So Quick, So Resolute, It’s Almost Like A Meeting.

One Must Not Cheat Anyone, Not Even The World Of Its Victory.

Not Everyone Can See The Truth, But He Can Be It.

The Mediation By The Serpent Was Necessary. Evil Can Seduce Man, But Cannot Become Man.

He Thought Back On His Family With Deep Emotion And Love. His Conviction That He Would Have To Disappear Was, If Possible, Even Firmer Than His Sister's. He Remained In This State Of Empty And Peaceful Reflection Until The Tower Clock Struck Three In The Morning. He Still Saw That Outside The Window Everything Was Beginning To Grow Light. Then, Without His Consent, His Head Sank Down To The Floor, And From His Nostrils Streamed His Last Weak Breath.

But What If All The Tranquility, All The Comfort, All The Contentment Were Now To Come To A Horrifying End?

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.

Sensual Love Deceives One As To The Nature Of Heavenly Love; It Could Not Do So Alone, But Since It Unconsciously Has The Element Of Heavenly Love Within It, It Can Do So.

It Is Not Necessary To Accept Everything As True, One Must Only Accept It As Necessary.' 'a Melancholy Conclusion,' Said K. 'it Turns Lying Into A Universal Principle.

The Observer Of The Soul Cannot Penetrate Into The Soul, But There Doubtless Is A Margin Where He Comes Into Contact With It. Recognition Of This Contact Is The Fact That Even The Soul Does Not Know Of Itself. Hence It Must Remain Unknown. That Would Be Sad Only If There Were Anything Apart From The Soul, But There Is Nothing Else.

There Is Nothing Bad To Fear; Once You Have Crossed That Threshold, All Is Well. Another World, And You Do Not Have To Speak

It Isn't Necessary That You Leave Home. Sit At Your Desk And Listen. Don't Even Listen, Just Wait. Don't Wait, Be Still And Alone. The Whole World Will Offer Itself To You.

If The Literature We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, Why Then Do We Read It? A Literary Work Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Sea Frozen Inside Us.

A First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Is The Wish To Die.

It's Sometimes Quite Astonishing That A Single, Average Life Is Enough To Encompass So Much That It's At All Possible Ever To Have Any Success In One's Work Here.

He Who Seeks Does Not Find, But He Who Does Not Seek Will Be Found.

But Gregor Understood Easily That It Was Not Only Consideration For Him Which Prevented Their Moving, For He Could Easily Have Been Transported In A Suitable Crate With A Few Air Holes; What Mainly Prevented The Family From Moving Was Their Complete Hopelessness And The Thought That They Had Been Struck By A Misfortune As None Of Their Relatives And Acquaintances Had Ever Been Hit.

I See, These Books Are Probably Law Books, And It Is An Essential Part Of The Justice Dispensed Here That You Should Be Condemned Not Only In Innocence But Also In Ignorance.

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.

The History Of Mankind Is The Instant Between Two Strides Taken By A Traveler.

I Have Hardly Anything In Common With Myself And Should Stand Very Quietly In A Corner, Content That I Can Breathe.

Don't Despair, Not Even Over The Fact That You Don't Despair.

There Are Times When I Am Convinced I Am Unfit For Any Human Relationship.

Human Relations

I Think We Ought To Read Only The Kind Of Books That Wound And Stab Us.

I Want In Fact More Of You. In My Mind I Am Dressing You With Light; I Am Wrapping You Up In Blankets Of Complete Acceptance And Then I Give Myself To You. I Long For You; I Who Usually Long Without Longing, As Though I Am Unconscious And Absorbed In Neutrality And Apathy, Really, Utterly Long For Every Bit Of You.

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.

The Ulterior Motives With Which You Absorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil. The Animal Wrests The Whip From Its Master And Whips Itself In Order To Become Master, Not Knowing That This Is Only A Fantasy Produced By A New Knot In The Master's Whiplash.

As Far As I Have Seen, At School...they Aimed At Blotting Out One's Individuality.

I Do Not Speak As I Think, I Do Not Think As I Should, And So It All Goes On In Helpless Darkness.

A Book Should Serve As An Axe To The Ice Inside Us.

We Need The Books That Affect Us Like A Disaster, That Grieve Us Deeply, Like The Death Of Someone We Loved More Than Ourselves, Like Being Banished Into Forests Far From Everyone, Like A Suicide. A Book Must Be The Axe For The Frozen Sea Inside Us.

The Thornbush Is The Old Obstacle In The Road. It Must Catch Fire If You Want To Go Further.

Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.

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.

All Science Is Methodolgy With Regard To The Absolute. Therefore, There Need Be No Fear Of The Unequivocally Methodological. It Isa Husk, But Not More Than Everything Except The One.

One Has Just Been Sent Out As A Biblical Dove, Has Found Nothing Green, And Slips Back Into The Darkness Of The Ark

We All Have Wings, But They Have Not Been Of Any Avail To Us And If We Could Tear Them Off, We Would Do So.

The Limited Circle Is Pure.

I Am Constantly Trying To Communicate Something Incommunicable, To Explain Something Inexplicable, To Tell About Something I Only Feel In My Bones And Which Can Only Be Experienced In Those Bones. Basically It Is Nothing Other Than This Fear We Have So Often Talked About, But Fear Spread To Everything, Fear Of The Greatest As Of The Smallest, Fear, Paralyzing Fear Of Pronouncing A Word, Although This Fear May Not Only Be Fear But Also A Longing For Something Greater Than All That Is Fearful.

Writing Is A Sweet, Wonderful Reward.

If What Was Supposed To Have Been Destroyed In Paradise Was Destructible, Then It Was Not Decisive; But If It Was Indestructible, Then We Are Living In A False Belief.

He Was A Tool Of The Boss, Without Brains Or Backbone.

Dread Of Night. Dread Of Not-night.

The Whole Visible World Is Perhaps Nothing Other Than A Motivation Of Man's Wish To Rest For A Moment An Attempt To Falsify The Fact Of Knowledge, To Try To Turn The Knowledge Into The Goal.

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

Someone Must Have Slandered Josef K., For One Morning, Without Having Done Anything Truly Wrong, He Was Arrested.

If You Find Someone Who Makes You Smile, Who Checks Up On You Often To See If You're Okay. Who Watches Out Or You And Wants The Best For You. Who Loves And Respects You. Don't Let Them Go. People Like That Are Hard To Find.

One Must Fight To Get To The Top, Especially If One Starts At The Bottom.

Some Books Seem Like A Key To Unfamiliar Rooms In One’s Own Castle.

The Door Could Not Be Heard Slamming; They Had Probably Left It Open, As Is The Custom In Homes Where A Great Misfortune Has Occurred.

I Miss You Deeply, Unfathomably, Senselessly, Terribly.

I Need Solitude For My Writing; Not 'like A Hermit' - That Wouldn't Be Enough - But Like A Dead Man.

Each Of Us Has His Own Way Of Emerging From The Underworld, Mine Is By Writing. That's Why The Only Way I Can Keep Going, If At All, Is By Writing, Not Through Rest And Sleep. I Am Far More Likely To Achieve Peace Of Mind Through Writing Than The Capacity To Write Through Peace.

Time Is Short, My Strength Is Limited, The Office Is A Horror, The Apartment Is Noisy, And If A Pleasant, Straightforward Life Is Not Possible, Then One Must Try To Wriggle Through By Subtle Manoeuvres.

I Can Love Only What I Can Place So High Above Me That I Cannot Reach It.

For We Are Like Tree Trunks In The Snow. In Appearance They Lie Smoothly And A Little Push Should Be Enough To Set Them Rolling. No, It Can't Be Done, For They Are Firmly Wedded To The Ground. But See, Even That Is Only Appearance.

Believing Means Liberating The Indestructible Element In Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Liberating Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Being Indestructible, Or, More Accurately, Being.

One Reads In Order To Ask Questions

If Something Good Has Lost Its Way Into You, It Will Make Its Escape Overnight. I Know You.

The Various Forms Of Despair At The Various Stations On The Road.

Everything You Say Is Boring And Incomprehensible, But That Alone Doesn't Make It True.

Utterance Does Not In Principle Mean A Weakening Of Conviction--that Would Not Be Anything To Be Deplored--but A Weakness Of Conviction.

Our Art Is A Way Of Being Dazzled By Truth: The Light On The Grotesquely Grimacing Retreating Face Is True, And Nothing Else.

Start With What Is Right Rather Than What Is Acceptable.

I Have No Memory For Things I Have Learned, Nor Things I Have Read, Nor Things Experienced Or Heard, Neither For People Nor Events; I Feel That I Have Experienced Nothing, Learned Nothing, That I Actually Know Less Than The Average Schoolboy, And That What I Do Know Is Superficial, And That Every Second Question Is Beyond Me. I Am Incapable Of Thinking Deliberately; My Thoughts Run Into A Wall. I Can Grasp The Essence Of Things In Isolation, But I Am Quite Incapable Of Coherent, Unbroken Thinking. I Can't Even Tell A Story Properly; In Fact, I Can Scarcely Talk.

I Am A Cage, In Search Of A Bird.

The Existence Of The Writer Is An Argument Against The Existence Of The Soul, For The Soul Has Obviously Taken Flight From The Real Ego, But Not Improved Itself, Only Become A Writer.

The True Way Goes Over A Rope Which Is Not Stretched At Any Great Height But Just Above The Ground. It Seems More Designed To Make People Stumble Than To Be Walked Upon.

I Never Wish To Be Easily Defined. I’d Rather Float Over Other People’s Minds As Something Strictly Fluid And Non-perceivable; More Like A Transparent, Paradoxically Iridescent Creature Rather Than An Actual Person.

True Undoubting Is The Teacher's Part, Continual Undoubting The Part Of The Pupil.

You See, I Have Only Such A Fugitive Awareness Of Things Around Me That I Always Feel They Were Once Real And Are Now Fleeting Away.

Always First Draw Fresh Breath After Outbursts Of Vanity And Complacency.

I Am Free And That Is Why I Am Lost.

From Outside One Will Always Triumphantly Impress Theories Upon The World And Then Fall Straight Into The Ditch One Has Dug, But Only From Inside Will One Keep Oneself And The World Quiet And True.

Man Cannot Live Without A Permanent Trust In Something Indestructible In Himself, Though Both The Indestructible Element And The Trust May Remain Permanently Hidden From Him. One Of The Ways In Which This Hiddenness Can Express Itself Is Through Faith In A Personal God.

If The Book We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, As With A Fist Hammering On Our Skull, Why Then Do We Read It?

If The Book We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, As With A Fist Hammering On Our Skull, Why Then Do We Read? So That It Shall Make Us Happy? Good God, We Should Also Be Happy If We Had No Books, And Such Books As Make Us Happy We Could, If Need Be, Write Ourselves. But What We Must Have Are Those Books Which Come Upon Us Like Ill Fortune, And Distress Us Deeply, Like The Death Of One We Love Better Than Ourselves; Like Suicide. A Book Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Sea Frozen Inside Us.

I Passed By The Brothel As Though Past The House Of A Beloved.

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.

This Perversion Of The Truth, Familiar To The Artist Though It Was, Always Unnerved Him Afresh And Proved Too Much For Him. What Was A Consequence Of The Premature Ending Of His Fast Was Here Presented As The Cause Of It! To Fight Against This Lack Of Understanding, Against A Whole World Of Nonunderstanding, Was Impossible.

Writing [is] A Form Of Prayer.

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.

By Imposing Too Great A Responsibility, Or Rather, All Responsibility, On Yourself, You Crush Yourself.

From The True Antagonist Illimitable Courage Is Transmitted To You.

Being Alone Has A Power Over Me That Never Fails. My Interior Dissolves (for The Time Being Only Superficially) And Is Ready To Release What Lies Deeper. When I Am Willfully Alone, A Slight Ordering Of My Interior Begins To Take Place And I Need Nothing More.

It Was Like This. The Brain Could No Longer Bear The Worries And Pains That Were Imposed On It. It Said: "i'm Giving Up; But If There Is Anyone Else Here Who Is Interested In Preserving The Whole, Let Him Assume Part Of My Burden And It Will Be Alright For A Bit.

Do Not Waste Your Time Looking For An Obstacle - Maybe There Is None.

A Man Of Action Forced Into A State Of Thought Is Unhappy Until He Can Get Out Of It.

First Impressions Are Always Unreliable.

First Impression

Writing Is Utter Solitude, The Descent Into The Cold Abyss Of Oneself.

Evil Is Whatever Distracts.

They're Talking About Things Of Which They Don't Have The Slightest Understanding, Anyway. It's Only Because Of Their Stupidity That They're Able To Be So Sure Of Themselves.

No Sooner Said Than Done - So Acts Your Man Of Worth.

The Notion Of The Infinite Expanse And Copiousness Of The Cosmos Is The Result Of The Mixture, Carried To The Extreme Limit, Of Laborious Creation And Free Self-determination.

Palestine Needs Earth, But It Does Not Need Lawyers.

I Can't Feel A Thing; All Mournful Petal Storms Are Dancing Inside The Very Private Spring Of My Head.

The Cruelty Of Death Lies In The Fact That It Brings The Real Sorrow Of The End, But Not The End. The Greatest Cruelty Of Death: An Apparent End Causes A Real Sorrow. Our Salvation Is Death, But Not This One.

So Then You’re Free?’ ‘yes, I’m Free,’ Said Karl, And Nothing Seemed More Worthless Than His Freedom.

It Would Be Very Unjust To Say That You Deserted Me, But That I Was Deserted, And Sometimes Terribly So, Is True.

This Tremendous World I Have Inside Of Me. How To Free Myself, And This World, Without Tearing Myself To Pieces. And Rather Tear Myself To A Thousand Pieces Than Be Buried With This World Within Me.

I Do Not See The World At All; I Invent It.

I’m Doing Badly, I’m Doing Well; Whichever You Prefer.

One Morning, As Gregor Samsa Was Waking Up From Anxious Dreams, He Discovered That In His Bed He Had Been Changed Into A Monstrous Bug.

The Decisive Moment In Human Evolution Is Perpetual. That Is Why The Revolutionary Spiritual Movements That Declare All Former Things Worthless Are In The Right, For Nothing Has Yet Happened.

I Am More Uncertain Than I Ever Was; I Feel Only The Power Of Life. And I Am Senselessly Empty.

In Argument Similes Are Like Songs In Love; They Describe Much, But Prove Nothing.

The Messiah Will Come Only When He Is No Longer Necessary, He Will Come Only One Day After His Arrival, He Will Not Come On The Last Day, But On The Last Day Of All.

Tyranny Or Slavery, Born Of Selfishness, Are The Two Educational Methods Of Parents; All Gradations Of Tyranny Or Slavery.

God Gives The Nuts, But He Does Not Crack Them.

A Picture Of My Existence... Would Show A Useless Wooden Stake Covered In Snow... Stuck Loosely At A Slant In The Ground In A Ploughed Field On The Edge Of A Vast Open Plain On A Dark Winter Night.

I Am In Chains. Don't Touch My Chains.

The Fathers Of The Church Were Not Afraid To Go Out Into The Desert Because They Had A Richness In Their Hearts. But We, With Richness All Around Us, Are Afraid, Because The Desert Is In Our Hearts.

Maybe Innocence Makes Its Way Easiest Through The Elemental Chaos Of This World.

When One Has Once Accepted And Absorbed Evil, It No Longer Demands To Be Believed.

There Is A Goal But No Way; What We Call The Way Is Mere Wavering.

It Is Often Safer To Be In Chains Than To Be Free.

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.

Trending Author

Edsger Dijkstra

Category