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If This Is What You Came For, Then I Didn't Send For You. Kafka (note To Himself In Journal)
-Franz Kafka
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If This Is What

Franz Kafka
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If This Is What You Came For, Then I Didn't Send For You. Kafka (note To Himself In Journal)

Understanding the Quote: "if this is what you came for, then i didn't send for..."

This quote by Franz Kafka reflects deeply on the theme of notes. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Notes, Journal, Ifs, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Franz Kafka interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka is celebrated for insightful thoughts on notes and journal. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Notes
Journal
Ifs
More From Franz Kafka
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.
Always Trying
Trying
Bones
I Never Imagined That So Many Days Would Ultimately Make Such A Small Life.
Small Life
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.
Suicide
Book
Grieving
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.
Home
Waiting
World
A Book Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Seas Frozen Inside Our Soul.
Book
Reading
Ice
Anything That Has Real And Lasting Value Is Always A Gift From Within.
Inspirational
Real
Lasting
The Man In Ecstasy And The Man Drowning - Both Throw Up Their Arms. The First To Signify Harmony, The Second To Signify Strife With The Elements.
Men
Arms
Firsts
My 'fear' Is My Substance, And Probably The Best Part Of Me.
Fear
Fearless
Substance
Books Are A Narcotic.
Book
Health
Narcotics
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
Stuff
Sometimes
Laundry
The State We Find Ourselves In Is Sinful Quite Independent Of Guilt.
Independent
Guilt
States
To Animalise Is Humane, To Humanise Is Animal.
Animal
Humane
It Is Comforting To Reflect That The Disproportion Of Things In The World Seems To Be Only Arithmetical.
Comforting
World
Seems
Believing Means Liberating The Indestructible Element In Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Liberating Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Being Indestructible, Or, More Accurately, Being.
Believe
Mean
Liberty
May I Kiss You Then? On This Miserable Paper? I Might As Well Open The Window And Kiss The Night Air.
Kissing
Night
Air
Writing Is Utter Solitude, The Descent Into The Cold Abyss Of Oneself.
Loneliness
Being Alone
Writing
Evil Is The Starry Sky Of The Good.
Sky
Evil
Starry Sky
The Founder Brought The Laws From The Lawgiver; The Faithful Are Meant To Announce The Laws To The Lawgiver.
God
Law
Faithful
There Are Times When I Am Convinced I Am Unfit For Any Human Relationship.
Humans
Human Relations
Convinced
I Have The True Feeling Of Myself Only When I Am Unbearably Unhappy.
Depression
Feelings
Feeling Lost
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.
Life
Death
Real
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
Night
Bored
Faces
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.
Book
Ignorance
Law
Some Deny The Existence Of Misery By Pointing To The Sun; He Denies The Existence Of The Sun By Pointing To Misery.
Sun
Misery
Deny
You Are At Once Both The Quiet And The Confusion Of My Heart.
Heart
Confusion
Quiet
There Are Questions We Could Not Get Past If We Were Not Set Free From Them By Our Very Nature.
Past
Ifs
What A Fate: To Be Condemned To Work For A Firm Where The Slightest Negligence At Once Gave Rise To The Gravest Suspicion! Were All The Employees Nothing But A Bunch Of Scoundrels, Was There Not Among Them One Single Loyal Devoted Man Who, Had He Wasted Only An Hour Or So Of The Firm's Time In The Morning, Was So Tormented By Conscience As To Be Driven Out Of His Mind And Actually Incapable Of Leaving His Bed?
Morning
Fate
Men
I Lack Nothing. I Only Needed Myself.
Needed
You're Not Cross With Me, Though?" He Said. She Pulled Her Hand Away And Answered, "no, No, I'm Never Cross With Anyone.
Hands
Crosses
Said
"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.
Sad
Midnight
Want
The Dream Reveals The Reality Which Conception Lags Behind. That Is The Horror Of Life-the Terror Of Art.
Dream
Art
Halloween
The Thornbush Is The Old Obstacle In The Road. It Must Catch Fire If You Want To Go Further.
Fire
Literature
Want
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.
Lying
Principles
Melancholy
Sometimes I Think I Can Expiate All My Past And Future Sins Through The Aching Of My Bones.
Past
Thinking
Chaos
Suffering Is The Positive Element In This World, Indeed It Is The Only Link Between This World And The Positive.
Positive
Depression
World Suffering
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.
Life
World
Deny
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.
People
Mind
Wish
By Imposing Too Great A Responsibility, Or Rather, All Responsibility, On Yourself, You Crush Yourself.
Inspirational
Life
Crush
We Were Expelled From Paradise, But It Was Not Destroyed. The Expulsion From Paradise Was In One Sense A Piece Of Good Fortune, For If We Had Not Been Expelled, Paradise Would Have Had To Be Destroyed.
Luck
Pieces
Paradise
The Purpose Of A Story Is To Be An Axe That Breaks Up The Ice Within Us.
Ice
Purpose
Stories
Written Kisses Never Arrive At Their Destination; The Ghosts Drink Them Up Along The Way.
Kissing
Way
Ghost
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.
Giving Up
Pain
Worry
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.
Seduction
Assuming
Sometimes
I Like To Make Use Of What I Know
Use
Knows
Utterance Does Not In Principle Mean A Weakening Of Conviction--that Would Not Be Anything To Be Deplored--but A Weakness Of Conviction.
Mean
Weakness
Principles
Death Confronts Us Not Unlike The Historical Battle Scene That Hangs On The Wall Of The Classroom. It Is Our Task To Obscure Or Quite Obliterate The Picture By Our Deeds While We Are Still In This World.
Death
Wall
Historical
One Advantage In Keeping A Diary Is That You Become Aware With Reassuring Clarity Of The Changes Which You Constantly Suffer.
Suffering
Diaries
Clarity
No One Can Crave What Truly Harms Him.
Harm
Crave
Slept, Awoke, Slept, Awoke, Miserable Life.
Life
Sleep
Novelists
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.
Depression
Health
World Suffering
A Book Should Serve As An Axe To The Ice Inside Us.
Book
Ice
Should
I Am More Uncertain Than I Ever Was; I Feel Only The Power Of Life. And I Am Senselessly Empty.
Chaos
Empty
Uncertain
Writing [is] A Form Of Prayer.
Prayer
Writing
Form
A Belief Is Like A Guillotine, Just As Heavy, Just As Light.
Inspirational
Light
Belief
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.
War
Fate
Hands
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.
Determination
Self
Cosmos
Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.
Kill Me
Murderer
Human Nature, Essentially Changeable, As Unstable As The Dust, Can Endure No Restraint; If It Binds Itself It Soon Begins To Tear Madly At Its Bonds, Until It Rends Everything Asunder, The Wall, The Bonds, And Its Very Self.
Wall
Self
Dust
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.
Eye
Brain
Watches
Just Think How Many Thoughts A Blanket Smothers While One Lies Alone In Bed, And How Many Unhappy Dreams It Keeps Warm.
Dream
Lying
Thinking
We Live In An Age Which Is So Possessed By Demons, That Soon We Shall Only Be Able To Do Goodness And Justice In The Deepest Secrecy, As If It Were A Crime.
Justice
Age
Able
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.
Animal
Order
Knowing
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.
Fighting
Artist
Understanding
A Lawyer Is A Person Who Writes A 10,000-word Document And Calls It A "brief."
Writing
Lawyer
Persons
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.
Winter
Dark
Night
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.
Communication
Trying
May
There Is Nothing Besides A Spiritual World; What We Call The World Of The Senses Is The Evil In The Spiritual World, And What We Call Evil Is Only The Necessity Of A Moment In Our Eternal Evolution.
Spiritual
Evil
World
There Art Two Cardinal Sins From Which All Others Spring: Impatience And Laziness.
Patience
Art
Spring
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.
Reading
Ice
Sea
There Was Once A Community Of Scoundrels, That Is To Say, They Were Not Scoundrels, But Ordinary People.
People
Community
Ordinary
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.
Cheating
Loneliness
Mean
The Fact That Our Task Is Exactly Commensurate With Our Life Gives It The Appearance Of Being Infinite.
Giving
Tasks
Literature
All Human Errors Are Impatience, A Premature Breaking Off Of Methodical Procedure, An Apparent Fencing-in Of What Is Apparently At Issue.
Patience
Errors
Issues
What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.
Dregs
Written
But Questions That Don’t Answer Themselves At The Very Moment Of Their Asking Are Never Answered.
Asking
Answers
Moments
Writing Is A Deeper Sleep Than Death. Just As One Wouldn't Pull A Corpse From Its Grave, I Can't Be Dragged From My Desk At Night.
Writing
Sleep
Night
It Receives You When You Come And Dismisses You When You Go.
. . . The Books We Need Are The Kind That Act Upon Us Like A Misfortune, That Make Us Suffer Like The Death Of Someone We Love More Than Ourselves, That Make Us Feel As Though We Were On The Verge Of Suicide, Or Lost In A Forest Remote From All Human Habitation-a Book Should Serve As An Axe For The Frozen Sea Within Us.
Suicide
Book
Suicidal
Writing Sustains Me. But Wouldn’t It Be Better To Say It Sustains This Kind Of Life? Which Doesn't Mean Life Is Any Better When I Don’t Write. On The Contrary, It Is Far Worse, Wholly Unbearable, And Inevitably Ends In Madness. This Is, Of Course, Only On The Assumption That I Am A Writer Even When I Don’t Write - Which Is Indeed The Case; And A Non-writing Writer Is, In Fact, A Monster Courting Insanity.
Writing
Mean
Insanity
What I Write Is Different From What I Say, What I Say Is Different From What I Think, What I Think Is Different From What I Ought To Think And So It Goes Further Into The Deepest Darkness.
Communication
Writing
Thinking
The Fact That There Is Nothing But A Spiritual World Deprives Us Of Hope And Gives Us Certainty.
Spiritual
Giving
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.
Science
Needs
No Fear
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.
Home
Doors
Metamorphosis
If Education Tries To Make Other Persons Out Of Us Than We Essentially Are, Deeper Inside, It Stultifies, And Reproach Matters.
Trying
Matter
Deeper
In Argument Similes Are Like Songs In Love; They Describe Much, But Prove Nothing.
Love
Song
Argument
Marrying, Founding A Family, Accepting All The Children That Come, Supporting Them In This Insecure World, And Perhaps Even Guiding Them A Little, Is, I Am Convinced, The Utmost A Human Being Can Succeed In Doing At All.
Children
Insecure
Littles
Follow Your Most Intense Obsessions Mercilessly.
Hate
Obsession
Intense
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.
Writing
Effort
Incapacity
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.
Tears
Novelists
Pieces
Every Dog Has Like Me The Impulse To Question, And I Have Like Every Dog The Impulse Not To Answer.
Dog
Answers
Impulse
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.
People
Make You Smile
Watches
Always First Draw Fresh Breath After Outbursts Of Vanity And Complacency.
Vanity
Literature
Complacency
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.
Men
History
Peers
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.
Lying
Opportunity
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.
Liberty
Atlas
Literature
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.
Horse
Block
Gay
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.
Moving
Dark
Past
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.
Pieces
World
Torn
I Made The Remark That I Don't Avoid People In Order To Live Quietly, But Rather In Order To Be Able To Die Quietly.
Order
People
Able
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.
Inspirational
Fashion
Truth
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.
Suicide
Mean
Understanding
All I Am Is Literature, And I Am Not Able Or Willing To Be Anything Else.
Literature
Able
Willing
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.
Real
Taken
Ego
How Can One Take Delight In The World Unless One Flees To It For Refuge?
Delight
Literature
World
I No Longer Know If I Wish To Drown Myself In Love, Vodka Or The Sea.
Sea
Wish
Vodka
We Photograph Things In Order To Drive Them Out Of Our Minds. My Stories Are A Way Of Shutting My Eyes.
Eye
Order
Mind
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.
Two
Orbit
Tasks
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.
Hype
Sensual
Elements
Simply Wait, Be Quiet, Still The World Will Freely Offer Itself To You.
Suicide
Suicidal
Solitary Life
Maybe Innocence Makes Its Way Easiest Through The Elemental Chaos Of This World.
World
Way
Innocence
My Guiding Principle Is This: Guilt Is Never To Be Doubted.
Guiding Principles
Guilt
Doubted
Psychology Is The Description Of The Reflection Of The Terrestial World In The Heavenly Plane, Or, More Correctly, The Description Of A Reflection Such As We, Soaked As We Are In Our Terrestial Nature, Imagine It, For No Reflection Actually Occurs, Only We See Earth Wherever We Turn.
Reflection
Psychology
World
Don't Despair, Not Even Over The Fact That You Don't Despair.
Health
Despair
Literature
If You Become Involved With Me, You Will Be Throwing Yourself Into The Abyss.
Throwing
Abyss
Involved
Hiding Places There Are Innumerable, Escape Is Only One, But Possibilities Of Escape, Again, Are As Many As Hiding Places.
Hiding
Possibility
Hiding Place
It's Impossible To Defend Oneself In The Absence Of Goodwill
Impossible
Absence
Goodwill
Anyone Who Believes Cannot Experience Miracles. By Day One Does Not See Any Stars. Anyone Who Does Miracles Says: I Cannot Let Goof The Earth.
Letting Go
Stars
Believe
Nothing, You Know, Gives The Body Greater Satisfaction Than Ordering People About, Or At Least Believing In One's Ability To Do So.
Believe
People
Giving
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.
Strong
Mean
Eye
I Usually Solve Problems By Letting Them Devour Me.
Problem
Solve
Some Books Seem Like A Key To Unfamiliar Rooms In One’s Own Castle.
Book
Keys
Castles
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.
Dust
Essence
Individuality
A Man Of Action Forced Into A State Of Thought Is Unhappy Until He Can Get Out Of It.
Men
Unhappy
Action
Every New Discovery Is Assumed At Once Into The Sum Total Of Knowledge, And With That Ceases In A Sense To Be A Discovery; It Dissolves Into The Whole And Disappears, And One Must Have A Trained Scientific Eye Even To Recognize It After That.
Eye
Discovery
Disappear
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.
Lying
Needs
Failing
I Have Hardly Anything In Common With Myself And Should Stand Very Quietly In A Corner, Content That I Can Breathe.
Common
Breathe
Should
Either The World Is So Tiny Or We Are Enormous; In Either Case, We Fill It Completely.
World
Tiny
Cases
My Job Is Unbearable To Me Because It Conflicts With My Only Desire And My Only Calling, Which Is Literature. Since I Am Nothing But Literature And Can And Want To Be Nothing Else, My Job Will Never Take Possession Of Me, It May, However, Shatter Me Completely, And This Is By No Means A Remote Possibility.
Jobs
Mean
Desire
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.
Women
Compassion
Thinking
The Ulterior Motives With Which You Absorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil.
Evil
Whiplash
Motive
The True Word Leads; The Untrue Misleads.
True Words
Untrue
Mislead
You Need Not Even Listen, Just Wait...the World Will Offer Itself Freely To You, Unmasking Itself.
Travel
Waiting
Unmasking
First Impressions Are Always Unreliable.
First Impression
Firsts
Impression
I Can Love Only What I Can Place So High Above Me That I Cannot Reach It.
I Can
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.
Paradise
Belief
Has Beens
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.
Motivation
Men
Goal
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.
Father
Heart
Church
One Must Not Cheat Anyone, Not Even The World Of Its Victory.
Cheating
Victory
World
My Doubts Stand In A Circle Around Every Word, I See Them Before I See The Word, But What Then! I Do Not See The Word At All, I Invent It.
Circles
Doubt
In A Way, I Was Safe Writing
Writing
Safe
Way
He Was A Tool Of The Boss, Without Brains Or Backbone.
Boss
Brain
Tools
There Is A Destination But No Way There; What We Refer To As Way Is Hesitation.
Way
Destination
Hesitation
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.
Wings
Tears
Literature
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.
Average
Sometimes
Life Is
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.
Life
Spiritual
Mind
Most Men Are Not Wicked... They Are Sleep-walkers, Not Evil Evildoers.
Philosophical
Sleep
Men
The Right Understanding Of Any Matter And A Misunderstanding Of The Same Matter Do Not Wholly Exclude Each Other.
Understanding
Matter
Misunderstanding
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.
Wall
Mean
Night
What Do I Have In Common With Jews? I Don't Even Have Anything In Common With Myself.
Common
Jew
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.
Tree
Guilt
States
There Is A Down-and-outness Under True Knowledge And A Childlike Happy Arising From It.
Down And
True Knowledge
Childlike
Start With What Is Right Rather Than What Is Acceptable.
Inspiring
Freedom
Autism
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
Educated
Single Word
People Label Themselves With All Sorts Of Adjectives. I Can Only Pronounce Myself As 'nauseatingly Miserable Beyond Repair'.
People
Adjectives
Labels
The Truth Is Always An Abyss.
Truth Is
Abyss
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.
Running
Wall
Cat
As Gregor Samsa Awoke One Morning From Uneasy Dreams He Found Himself Transformed In His Bed Into A Gigantic Insect.
Dream
Morning
Bed
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.
Art
Lying
Dark
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.
Evil
Deception
Trying
Youth Is Happy Because It Has The Ability To See Beauty. Anyone Who Keeps The Ability To See Beauty Never Grows Old.
Happy Birthday
Beauty
Inspirational Birthday
Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.
Way
Isolation
Knows
Going To Pieces. To Go To Pieces So Pointlessly And Unnecessarily.
Pieces
But What If All The Tranquility, All The Comfort, All The Contentment Were Now To Come To A Horrifying End?
What If
Contentment
Comfort
They Say Ignorance Is Bliss.... They're Wrong
Ignorance
Bliss
Ignorance Is Bliss
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.
Fall
World
Quiet
He Who Seeks Does Not Find, But He Who Does Not Seek Will Be Found.
Doe
Found
Our Art Is A Way Of Being Dazzled By Truth: The Light On The Grotesquely Grimacing Retreating Face Is True, And Nothing Else.
Art
Truth
Light
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.
Confusion
Pieces
Firsts
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.
Heart
Eye
Presence Of Mind
Torment Yourself As Little As Possible, Then You'll Torment Me Less.
Littles
Torment
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.
Love
Men
Doe
Believing In Progress Does Not Mean Believing That Any Progress Has Yet Been Made.
Believe
Mean
Progress
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.
Writing
Sleep
Mind
What If I Slept A Little More And Forgot About All This Nonsense.
What If
Littles
Nonsense
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.
Responsibility
Eight
Calm
There Has Never Been A Time In Which I Have Been Convinced From Within Myself That I Am Alive. 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. I Have A Constant Longing, My Dear Sir, To Catch A Glimpse Of Things As They May Have Been Before They Show Themselves To Me.
Beautiful
Real
Talking
The Person I Am In The Company Of My Sisters Has Been Entirely Different From The Person I Am In The Company Of Other People. Fearless, Powerful, Surprising, Moved As I Otherwise Am Only When I Write.
Powerful
Writing
People
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.
Running
Memories
Wall
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?
Book
Reading
Blow
I Never Wish To Be Easily Defined.
Wish
Defined
Evil Is Whatever Distracts.
Evil
Literature
Madness
There Will Be No Proof That I Ever Was A Writer.
Proof
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.
One Day
Redemption
Lasts
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.
Moving
Animal
Light
I Can Once More Carry On A Conversation With Myself, And Don't Stare So Into Complete Emptiness. Only In This Way Is There Any Possibility Of Improvement For Me.
Way
Emptiness
Improvement
One Has Just Been Sent Out As A Biblical Dove, Has Found Nothing Green, And Slips Back Into The Darkness Of The Ark
Biblical
Darkness
Green
All Language Is But A Poor Translation.
Ironic
Novelists
Language
So Long As You Have Food In Your Mouth, You Have Solved All Questions For The Time Being.
Food
Long
Cooking
What Am I Doing Here In This Endless Winter?
Winter
Endless
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.
Lying
Snow
Tree
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.
Mother
Hands
Movement
I Do Not Speak As I Think, I Do Not Think As I Should, And So It All Goes On In Helpless Darkness.
Thinking
Darkness
Goes On
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.
Talking
Stupidity
Understanding
Many A Book Is Like A Key To Unknown Chambers Within The Castle Of One’s Own Self.
Inspirational
Book
Reading
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.
Writing
Thinking
Darkness
The Messiah Will Only Come When He Is No Longer Needed.
Religious
Human Nature
Needed
He Is Terribly Afraid Of Dying Because He Hasn’t Yet Lived.
Fear
Dying
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.
Party
Judging
World
Picasso Only Registers The Deformities Which Have Not Yet Penetrated Our Consciousness. Art Is A Mirror Which Goes 'fast' Like A Watch - Sometimes.
Art
Mirrors
Watches
Adam's First Domestic Pet After The Expulsion From Paradise Was The Serpent.
Pet
Paradise
Firsts
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