“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. ”

“Every woman while she would be ready to die of shame if surprised in the act of generation, nonetheless carries her pregnancy without a trace of shame and indeed with a kind of pride. The reason is that pregnancy is in a certain sense a cancellation of the guilt incurred by coitus; thus coitus bears all the shame and disgrace of the affair, while pregnancy, which is so intimately associated with it, stays pure and innocent and is indeed to some extent sacred.”

“A woman especially, if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”

““The prospect of those visiting hours, for which the starvation artist naturally yearned, since they were the meaning of his life, also made him shudder.” ”

“As we shall see, the prerequisites for those developments consisted of several features of human society that determined whether a society would find writing useful, and whether the society could support the necessary specialist scribes.”

“Suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, and the other unseen. ...The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging. ...And further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul? ...Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen? ...the soul is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?”

“Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.”

“The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”

““Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark.””

“"Nothing would stop Gregor's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at him like a wild man."”

“ “Because without compassion, life has little value.””

““Pain was something one had to die with. It was something that left no strength in the arms, in the head, and destroyed even the courage to turn the head from side to side on the pillow.””

“Now is the winter of our discontent”

““With my teeth clenched, however, and with your eyes before me I can endure anything: distance, anxiety, worry, letterlessness.” (16 July 1920)”

“Weariness, which seeks to get to the ultimate with one leap, with one death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all gods and afterworlds.”

“But that which is useful is the better.”

“We are all convention; convention carries us away, and we neglect the substance of things. . . . We dare not call our parts by their right names, but are not afraid to use them for every sort of debauchery.”

““There is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you.””

“Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.”

“The guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.”

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

“Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”

“Human nature is the same everywhere; it deifies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat.”

“One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.”

““Milena among the saviors! Milena who is constantly discovering in herself that the only way to save another person is by being there and nothing else. Moreover, she has already saved me once with her presence and now, after the fact, is trying to do so with other, infinitely smaller means. Naturally, saving someone from drowning is a great deed, but what good is it if the savior then sends the saved a gift-certificate for a swimming course?” (31 July 1920)”

“Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!”

“We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful.”

“All warfare is based on deception.”