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Human Judgment Of Human Actions Is True And Void , That Is To Say, First True And Then Void.... The Judgment Of The Word Is True, The Judgment In Itself Is Void.... Only He Who Is A Party Can Really Judge, But As A Party He Cannot Judge. Hence It Follows That There Is No Possibility Of Judgment In The World, Only A Glimmer Of It.

-Franz Kafka

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Human Judgment Of Human

Franz Kafka

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Human Judgment Of Human Actions Is True And Void , That Is To Say, First True And Then Void.... The Judgment Of The Word Is True, The Judgment In Itself Is Void.... Only He Who Is A Party Can Really Judge, But As A Party He Cannot Judge. Hence It Follows That There Is No Possibility Of Judgment In The World, Only A Glimmer Of It.

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So Long As You Have Food In Your Mouth, You Have Solved All Questions For The Time Being.

If There Is A Transmigration Of Souls Then I Am Not Yet On The Bottom Rung. My Life Is A Hesitation Before Birth.

The Delights Of This Life Are Not Its Own, But Our Fear Of The Ascent Into A Higher Life; The Torments Of This Life Are Not Its Own, But Our Self-torment Because Of That Fear.

What Do I Have In Common With Jews? I Don't Even Have Anything In Common With Myself.

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

That's How It Will Be, Except That In Reality, Both Today And Later, One Will Stand There With A Palpable Body And A Real Head, A Real Forehead, That Is, For Smiting On With One's Hand.

The Fact That There Is Nothing But A Spiritual World Deprives Us Of Hope And Gives Us Certainty.

The Limited Circle Is Pure.

The Right Understanding Of Any Matter And A Misunderstanding Of The Same Matter Do Not Wholly Exclude Each Other.

Misunderstanding

There Was Once A Community Of Scoundrels, That Is To Say, They Were Not Scoundrels, But Ordinary People.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

Believing In Progress Does Not Mean Believing That Any Progress Has Yet Been Made.

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

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

And I Leave My Post Of Observation And Find I Have Had Enough Of This Outside Life; I Feel That There Is Nothing More That I Can Learn Here, Either Now Or At Any Time. And I Long To Say A Last Goodbye To Everything Up Here, To Go Down Into My Burrow Never To Return Again, Let Things Take Their Course, And Not Try To Retard Them With My Profitless Vigils.

I Wanted To Escape The Unrest, To Shut Out The Voices Around Me And Within Me, So I Write.

Writers Speak Stench.

Religions Get Lost As People Do.

One Can Disintegrate The World By Means Of Very Strong Light. For Weak Eyes The World Becomes Solid, For Still Weaker Eyes It Seems To Develop Fists, For Eyes Weaker Still It Becomes Shamefaced And Smashes Anyone Who Dares To Gaze Upon It.

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.

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

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.

In Paradise, As Always: That Which Causes The Sin And That Which Recognizes It For What It Is Are One. The Clear Conscience Is Evil, Which Is So Entirely Victorious That It Does Not Any Longer Consider The Leap From Left To Right Necessary.

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.

Writing Means Revealing Oneself To Excess.

April 27. Incapable Of Living With People, Of Speaking. Complete Immersion In Myself, Thinking Of Myself. Apathetic, Witless, Fearful. I Have Nothing To Say To Anyone - Never.

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.

There They Lay, But Not In The Forgetfulness Of The Previous Night. She Was Seeking And He Was Seeking, They Raged And Contorted Their Faces And Bored Their Heads Into Each Others Bosom In The Urgency Of Seeking Something, And Their Embraces And Their Tossing Limbs Did Not Avail To Make Them Forget, But Only Reminded Them Of What They Sought

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

It Is Comforting To Reflect That The Disproportion Of Things In The World Seems To Be Only Arithmetical.

Human Judgment Of Human Actions Is True And Void , That Is To Say, First True And Then Void.... The Judgment Of The Word Is True, The Judgment In Itself Is Void.... Only He Who Is A Party Can Really Judge, But As A Party He Cannot Judge. Hence It Follows That There Is No Possibility Of Judgment In The World, Only A Glimmer Of It.

From A Real Antagonist One Gains Boundless Courage.

I Do Not Read Advertisements. I Would Spend All Of My Time Wanting Things.

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.

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

In A Way, You Are Poetry Material; You Are Full Of Cloudy Subtleties I Am Willing To Spend A Lifetime Figuring Out. Words Burst In Your Essence And You Carry Their Dust In The Pores Of Your Ethereal Individuality.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

In The Struggle Between Yourself And The World Second The World.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Anybody Who Preserves The Ability To Recognize Beauty Will Never Get Old.

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

There Are Only Two Things. Truth And Lies. Truth Is Indivisible, Hence It Cannot Recognize Itself; Anyone Who Wants To Recognize It Has To Be A Lie.

The Dream Reveals The Reality Which Conception Lags Behind. That Is The Horror Of Life-the Terror Of Art.

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

Writing Is A Sweet, Wonderful Reward.

Like Tired Dogs They Stand There, Because They Use Up All Their Strength In Remaining Upright In One's Memory.

Written Kisses Never Arrive At Their Destination; The Ghosts Drink Them Up Along The Way.

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.

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.

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.

Most Men Are Not Wicked... They Are Sleep-walkers, Not Evil Evildoers.

He Is A Free And Secure Citizen Of The World Because He Is On A Chain That Is Long Enough To Allow Him Access To All Parts Of The Earth, And Yet Not So Long That He Could Be Swept Over The Edge Of It.

We Photograph Things In Order To Drive Them Out Of Our Minds. My Stories Are A Way Of Shutting My Eyes.

Work As Joy, Inaccessible To The Psychologists.

I Have The True Feeling Of Myself Only When I Am Unbearably Unhappy.

If I Shall Exist Eternally, How Shall I Exist Tomorrow?

The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops.

We Are Sinful Not Only Because We Have Eaten Of The Tree Of Knowledge, But Also Because We Have Not Yet Eaten Of The Tree Of Life. The State In Which We Are Is Sinful, Irrespective Of Guilt.

Follow Your Most Intense Obsessions Mercilessly.

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

Now I Can Look At You In Peace; I Don't Eat You Any More.

My 'fear' Is My Substance, And Probably The Best Part Of Me.

There Is An Infinite Amount Of Hope In The Universe ... But Not For Us.

You Do Not Need To Leave Your Room. Remain Sitting At Your Table And Listen. Do Not Even Listen, Simply Wait, Be Quiet, Still And Solitary. The World Will Freely Offer Itself To You To Be Unmasked, It Has No Choice, It Will Roll In Ecstasy At Your Feet.

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.

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

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

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

When One Has Once Accepted And Absorbed Evil, It No Longer Demands The Unfitness Of The Means. The Ulterior Motives With Which Youabsorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil.... Evil Is Whatever Distracts. Evil Knows Of The Good, But Good Does Not Know Of Evil. Knowledge Of Oneself Is Something Only Evil Has. One Means That Evil Has Is The Dialogue.... One Cannot Pay Evil In Installments--and One Always Keeps On Trying To.

All Language Is But A Poor Translation.

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 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.

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 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.

Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.

Love Is A Drama Of Contradictions.

We Were Created In Order To Live In Paradise, And Paradise Was Ordained To Serve Us. What Was Ordained For Us Has Been Changed; It Is Not Said That This Has Also Happened With What Was Ordained For Paradise.

You're Not Cross With Me, Though?" He Said. She Pulled Her Hand Away And Answered, "no, No, I'm Never Cross With Anyone.

If You Become Involved With Me, You Will Be Throwing Yourself Into The Abyss.

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

You Are So Vulnerably Haunting. Your Eeriness Is Terrifyingly Irresistible.

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

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

I Am Away From Home And Must Always Write Home, Even If Any Home Of Mine Has Long Since Floated Away Into Eternity.

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.

Life Is Merely Terrible; I Feel It As Few Others Do. Often — And In My Inmost Self Perhaps All The Time — I Doubt Whether I Am A Human Being.

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.

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

I Lack Nothing. I Only Needed Myself.

Sometimes I'd Like To Stuff All Jews (myself Included) Into The Drawer Of A Laundry Basket. Then Open It To See If They've Suffocated

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.

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.

Palestine Needs Earth, But It Does Not Need Lawyers.

I Write Differently From What I Speak, I Speak Differently From What I Think, I Think Differently From The Way I Ought To Think, And So It All Proceeds Into Deepest Darkness.

I Miss You Deeply, Unfathomably, Senselessly, Terribly.

Love Is, That You Are The Knife Which I Plunge Into Myself.

The Ulterior Motives With Which You Absorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil.

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

Slept, Awoke, Slept, Awoke, Miserable Life.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

In A Certain Sense You Deny The Existence Of This World. You Explain Life As A State Of Rest, A State Of Rest In Motion.

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

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.

You Can Choose To Be Free , But It's Last Decision You'll Ever Make

Writing [is] A Form Of Prayer.

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.

I Don't Know Who The Great Lawyers Are, And I Presume You Can't Get To Them. I Know Of No Case Where It Can Be Said For Certain That They Took Part. They Defend Some People, But You Can't Get Them To Do That Through Your Own Efforts, They Only Defend The Ones They Want To Defend. But I Assume A Case They Take On Must Have Progressed Beyond The Lower Court. It's Better Not To Think Of Them At All, Otherwise You'll Find The Consultations With The Other Lawyers, Their Advice And Their Assistance, Extremely Disgusting And Useless.

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.

All Knowledge, The Totality Of All Questions And Answers, Is Contained In The Dog.

Questions And Answers

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.

Simply Wait, Be Quiet, Still The World Will Freely Offer Itself To You.

My Peers, Lately, Have Found Companionship Through Means Of Intoxication - It Makes Them Sociable. I, However, Cannot Force Myself To Use Drugs To Cheat On My Loneliness - It Is All That I Have - And When The Drugs And Alcohol Dissipate, Will Be All That My Peers Have As Well.

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.

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

Expulsion From Paradise Is In Its Main Aspect Eternal: That Is To Say, Although Expulsion From Paradise Is Final, And Life In Theworld Unavoidable, The Eternity Of The Process (or, Expressed In Temporal Terms, The Eternal Repetition Of The Process) Nevertheless Makes It Possible Not Only That We Might Remain In Paradise Permanently, But That We May In Fact Be There Permanently, No Matter Whether We Know It Here Or Not.

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

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

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.

No," Said The Priest, "you Don't Need To Accept Everything As True, You Only Have To Accept It As Necessary." "depressing View," Said K. "the Lie Made Into The Rule Of The World.

There Are Questions We Could Not Get Past If We Were Not Set Free From Them By Our Very Nature.

Youth Is Happy Because It Has The Capacity To See Beauty.

Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.

Man Cannot Live Without A Continuous Confidence In Something Indestructible Within Himself.

In A Certain Sense The Good Is Comfortless.

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.

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

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.

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.

First Impressions Are Always Unreliable.

First Impression

All Human Errors Are Impatience, A Premature Breaking Off Of Methodical Procedure, An Apparent Fencing-in Of What Is Apparently At Issue.

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

I Believe That We Should Read Only Those Books That Bite And Sting Us. If A Book We Are Reading Does Not Rouse Us With A Blow To The Head, Then Why Read It?

If They Were Shocked, Then Gregor Had No Further Responsibility And Could Be Calm. But If They Took Everything Calmly, He He, Too, Had No Reason To Get Excited And Could, If He Hurried, Actually Be At The Station By Eight O'clock.

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.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

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.

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

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

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.

Martyrs Do Not Underrate The Body, They Allow It To Be Elevated On The Cross. In This They Are At One With Their Antagonists.

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

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

The Bible Is A Sanctum; The World, Sputum.

From The True Antagonist Illimitable Courage Is Transmitted To You. To What Indifference People May Come, To What Profound Conviction Of Having Lost The Right Track Forever.

I Think We Ought To Read Only The Kind Of Books That Wound And Stab Us. If The Book We Are Reading Doesn't Wake Us Up With A Blow On The Head, What Are We Reading It For?

And So Gentlemen, I Learned. Oh, If You Have To Learn, You Learn; If You’re Desperate For A Way Out, You Learn; You Learn Pitilessly. You Stand Over Yourself With A Whip In Your Hand; If There’s The Least Resistance, You Lash Yourself.

It Receives You When You Come And Dismisses You When You Go.

I Like To Make Use Of What I Know

Should I Be Grateful Or Should I Curse The Fact That Despite All Misfortune I Can Still Feel Love, An Unearthly Love But Still For Earthly Objects.

In Man's Struggle Against The World, Bet On The World.

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

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.

The History Of The World, As It Is Written And Handed Down By Word Of Mouth, Often Fails Us Completely; But Man's Intuitive Capacity, Though It Often Misleads, Does Lead, Does Not Ever Abandon One.

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.

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.

To Animalise Is Humane, To Humanise Is Animal.

He Who Does Not Answer The Questions Has Passed The Test.

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 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.

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.

Love Has As Few Problems As A Motor Car. The Only Problems Are The Driver, The Passengers, And The Road.

Was He An Animal, That Music Could Move Him So? He Felt As If The Way To The Unknown Nourishment He Longed For Were Coming To Light.

If All Responsibility Is Imposed On You, Then You May Want To Exploit The Moment And Want To Be Overwhelmed By The Responsibility;yet If You Try, You Will Notice That Nothing Was Imposed On You, But That You Are Yourself This Responsibility.

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

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.

The Kafka Paradox: Art Depends On Truth, But Truth, Being Indivisable, Cannot Know Itself: To Tell The Truth Is To Lie. Thus The Writer Is The Truth, And Yet When He Speakes He Lies.

Telling The Truth

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.

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.

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

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

The Whole Visible World Is Perhaps Nothing More Than The Rationalization Of A Man Who Wants To Find Peace For A Moment.

Two Tasks At The Beginning Of Your Life: To Narrow Your Orbit More And More, And Ever And Again To Check Whether You Are Not In Hiding Somewhere Outside Your Orbit.

It Requires Enormous Presence Of Mind Or Rather Quickness Of Wit, When Opening Your Eyes To Seize Hold As It Were Of Everything In The Room At Exactly The Same Place Where You Had Let It Go On The Previous Evening. That Is Why The Moment Of Waking Up Was The Riskiest Moment Of The Day. Once That Was Well Over Without Deflecting You From Your Orbit, You Could Take Heart Of Grace For The Rest Of The Day.

Presence Of Mind

One Tells As Few Lies As Possible Only By Telling As Few Lies As Possible, And Not By Having The Least Possible Opportunity To Do So.

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.

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

Evil Is The Starry Sky Of The Good.

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Jim Sensenbrenner

Steve Guttenberg

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