In the Penal Colony
Franz Kafka
Top 10 Best Quotes
“You've seen yourself how difficult the writing is to decipher with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds.”
“Many questions were troubling the explorer, but at the sight of the prisoner he asked only: "Does he know his sentence?" "No," said the officer, eager to go on with his exposition, but the explorer interrupted him: "He doesn't know the sentence that has been passed on him?" "No," said the officer again, pausing a moment as if to let the explorer elaborate his question, and then said: "There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body.”
“Guilt is never to be doubted.”
“It's always questionable to intervene decisively in strange circumstances.”
“Well, anyway- then came the sixth hour! It was not possible to grant every request to watch from close-up. In his wisdom, the commandant decreed that children should be given first priority. By virtue of my office, of courser, I was always nearby; often I was squatting there with a small child in either arm. How we drank in the transfigured look on the sufferer's face, how we bathed our cheeks in the warmth of that justice- achieved at long last and fading quickly. What times those were, my comrade!”
“Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates.”
“Enlightenment comes to even the dimmest. It begins around the eyes, and it spreads outward from there- a sight that might tempt one to lie down under the harrow oneself.”
“How could a man not be sickened when the felt in his mouth had been gnawed and drooled on by more than a hundred men as they lay dying?”
“But the condemned man looked so submissively doglike that it seemed as if he might have been allowed to run free on the slopes and would only need to be whistled for when the execution was due to begin.”
“He wanted to push against the feet while the other two men grabbed the head at the opposite end so that the officer could be eased off the needles. But the two men could not make up their minds to come over; the prisoner even turned away. The traveler had to go over and violently shove them toward the officer’s head. In so doing, he reluctantly saw the face of the corpse. It was as it had been in life; no sign of the promised redemption was perceptible; the officer has not found what all the others had found in the machine. His lips were squeezed tight, his eyes were open, with the same expression as in life, his gaze was calm and convinced, the point of the large iron spike had passed through his forehead.”
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Book Keywords:
doubt, redemption, in-the-penal-colony, pain, punishment, franz-kafka, guilt
