Some of these short philosophical texts seem easy to understand and interpret, others are simply puzzling at first sight (especially because I have not read any biographies of Kafka yet), but one thing is clear - all of them were written by the same person who wrote 'The Trial', 'In the Penal Colony', 'The Great Wall of China', 'The Burrow' and other stories. They are a part of the surreal world created by the author for himself.
These are the great writer's reflections on the true way in life, the relativity of good and evil, the reconing and 'the hereafter'. The sentences are written in simple words but there are inexhaustible meanings full of enigmas and paradoxes behind them that speak to both our conscious and subconscious.
'The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked along.'
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'A cage went in search of a bird.'
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'Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the
ceremony.
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'In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.'
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'His exhaustion is that of the gladiator after the fight, his work was the whitewashing of one corner in a clerk s office.'
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'It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.'
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'It s only our notion of time that allows us to speak of the Last Judgment, in fact it's a Court Martial.'
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'This feeling: Here I shall not anchor and instantly to feel the billowing, supporting swell around one! *A veering round. Peering, timid, hopeful, the answer prowls round the question, desperately
looking into its impenetrable face, following it along the most senseless paths, that is, alo ng the paths leading as far as possible away from the answer.'
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'We were created to live in Paradise, and Paradise was designed to serve us. Our designation has been changed; we are not told whether this has happened to Paradise as well.'
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'A belief like a guillotine - as heavy, as light.'
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'Two tasks of the beginning of life: to keep reducing your circle, and to keep making sure you re not hiding somewhere out side it.'
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'Sin always comes openly and can at once be grasped by means of the senses. It walks on its roots and does not have to be torn out.'
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'There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and l isten. Don t even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be
unmasked; it can t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.