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I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.

Franz Kafka

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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Avoid Freedom Hold Nature Suffering World Yourself
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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Acceptance Lying Necessary Principle True
Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.
FRANZ KAFKA

Guilty Man Wake Up
The limited circle is pure.
FRANZ KAFKA

Limitation Pure
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
FRANZ KAFKA

Bed Dream Easy Himself Morning Transformation Wake Up
It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.
FRANZ KAFKA

Death Himself Kill Philosophy
What am I doing here in this endless winter?
FRANZ KAFKA

End Myself Winter
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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Fashion Inspirational Logic Soul Yourself
I’m doing badly, I’m doing well, whichever you prefer.
FRANZ KAFKA

Deep Myself Yourself
I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.
FRANZ KAFKA

Explanation Myself Understand
My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
FRANZ KAFKA

Doubt Guilty Myself Principle
A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.
FRANZ KAFKA

Sanity Writing
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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Company Different Fear Myself People Person Powerful Writing
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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Life Material Poetry Way Willing Yourself
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
FRANZ KAFKA

Cold Deep Oneself Philosophy Solitude Writing
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.
FRANZ KAFKA

Acceptance Lie Necessary Need Rule World Yourself
Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have.
FRANZ KAFKA

Deep Material Need Philosophy
People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as ‘nauseatingly miserable beyond repair’.
FRANZ KAFKA

Misery People
He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.
FRANZ KAFKA

Afraid Death Deep Himself Live
I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.
FRANZ KAFKA

Death Desire End Life Myself Resistance
Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.
FRANZ KAFKA

Determination Live Logic Man
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 speaks he lies.
FRANZ KAFKA

Art Deep Lying Philosophy Talk Truth Writing
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
FRANZ KAFKA

Believe Deep Success
Books are a narcotic.
FRANZ KAFKA

Book One Liner
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
FRANZ KAFKA

Beyond Inspirational Return
So eager are our people to obliterate the present.
FRANZ KAFKA

Ourselves People Present
Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.
FRANZ KAFKA

Possible Quite Yourself

I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.

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I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.

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