Parables and Paradoxes Quotes

“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.

(Leoparden brechen in den Tempel ein und saufen die Opferkrüge leer; das wiederholt sich immer wieder; schließlich kann man es vorausberechnen, und es wird ein Teil der Zeremonie.)”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without ascending it, the work would have been permitted.

(Wenn es möglich gewesen wäre, den Turm von Babel zu erbauern ohne ihn zu erklettern, es wäre erlaubt worden.)”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“He asked me several things, but I couldn't answer, indeed I didn't even understand his questions. So I said: "Perhaps you are sorry now that you invited me, so I'd better go," and I was about to get up. But he stretched his hand out over the table and pressed me down. "Stay," he said, "that was only a test. He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“A man doubted that the emperor was descended from the gods; he asserted that the emperor was our rightful sovereign, he did not doubt the emperor's divine mission (that was evident to him), it was only the divine descent that he doubted. This, naturally, did not cause much of a stir; when the surf flings a drop of water on to the land, that does not interfere with the eternal rolling of the sea, on the contrary, it is caused by it.

(Ein Mann bezweifelte die gõttliche Sendung des Kaisers, er behauptete, der Kaiser sei mit Recht unser oberster Herr, bezweifelte nicht die gõttliche Sendung des Kaisers, die war ihm sichtbar, nur die gõttliche Abstammung bezweifelte er. Viel Aufsehen machte das na­turlich nicht; wenn die Brandung einen Wassertropfen ans Land wirft, stõrt das nicht den ewigen Wellengang des Meeres, es ist vielmehr von ihm bedingt.)”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“leoparzi patrund in Templu si beau din vasele de sacrificiu. evenimentul are loc din nou si din nou. pana la urma devine predictibil. devine parte a ceremoniei.”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“I ran past the first watchman. Then I was horrified, ran back and said to the watchman: "I ran through here while you were looking the other way." The watchman gazed ahead of him and said nothing. "I suppose I really oughtn't to have done it," I said. The watchman still said nothing. "Does your silence indicate permission to pass?”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“Poseidon sat at his desk, doing figures. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. [...] It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work; he did it only because it had been assigned to him; in fact, he had already filed many petitions for--as he put it--more cheerful work, but every time the offer of something different was made to him it turned out that nothing suited him quite as well as his present position.”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“If they could and if they dared, they would long ago have enticed the animal to come yet closer to them, so that they might be more frightened than ever. But in reality the animal is not at all eager to approach them, as long as it is left alone it takes just as little notice of them as of the men, and probably what it would like best would be to remain in the hiding place where it lives in the periods between the services, evidently in some hole in the wall that we have not yet discovered.”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“And perhaps he had made no mistake at all, his name really was called, it having been the teacher's intention to make the rewarding of the best student at the same time a punishment for the worst one.”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes

“Human nature, essentially changeable, 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.

(Das menschliche Wesen, leichtfertig in seinem Grund, von der Natur des auffliegenden Staubes, verträgt keine Fesselung; fesselt es sich selbst, wird es bald wahnsinnig an den Fesseln zu rütteln anfangen und Mauer, Kette und sich selbst in alle Himmelsrichtungen zerreißen.)”
― Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes