Quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke

You longed to be yourself.

schließlich wollte ich Ihnen ja auch nur raten, still und ernst durch Ihre Entwicklung durchzuwachsen; Sie können sie gar nicht heftiger stören, als wenn Sie nach außen sehen und von außen Antwort erwarten auf Fragen, die nur Ihr innerstes Gefühl in Ihrer leisesten Stunde vielleicht beantworten kann.

My eyes already touch the sunny hill. going far beyond the road I have begun, So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp; it has an inner light, even from a distance and changes us, even if we do not reach it, into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are; a gesture waves us on answering our own wave but what we feel is the wind in our faces. - A Walk

There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

For imagining an individual's existence as a larger or smaller room reveals to us that most people are only acquainted with one corner of their particular room, a place by the window, a little area to pace up and down. That way, they have a certain security. And yet the perilous uncertainty that drives the prisoners in Poe's tales to grope out the outlines of their terrible dungeons and so to know the unspeakable horrors of their surroundings, is so much more human.

Pues cerca de la muerte uno ya no ve la muerte y mira fijamente hacia afuera, quizás con una gran mirada de animal.

Geloof niet dat degene die u probeert te troosten moeiteloos te midden van de eenvoudige en stille woorden leeft waarbij u menigmaal baat vindt. Diens leven is rijk aan droefenis en verdriet en het blijft ver bij de woorden ten achter. Maar als het anders was, zou hij die woorden nooit hebben kunnen vinden. Borgeby Gård Flädie, Zweden, 12 augustus 2017

Quizá los sexos estén más emparentados de lo que se cree y la gran renovación del mundo consistirá, quizá, en que el hombre y la mujer, liberados de todos los sentimientos erróneos y de todas las desganas, no se buscarán como opuestos, sino como hermanos y vecinos; y se realizarán juntos como personas, a fin de llevar conjuntamente, con seriedad y paciencia, el sexo, que es difícil y que les ha sido impuesto.

Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me pleasure, and you must be indul

Wir haben nie, nicht einen einzigen Tag, den reinen Raum vor uns, in den die Blumen unendlich aufgehn.

If what you're drinking is bitter, let yourself be the wine.

To transcend the ego does not mean, for Rilke, to enter into a spiral of radical self-doubt and philosophical skepticism or to open the floodgates of unconscious desire and irrationality. It means to be swept up by the movement of one's heart (or soul, if you like, or serotonin levels) without ever reaching a state where this movement will lose its purpose and desire by being fulfilled.

If the angel deigns to come, it will be because you have convinced him, not by your tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning.

And the expenditure of energy only seems so great because you put too much importance on the victory. It is not victory that is the 'great thing' you think you have achieved, though the feeling itself is not in error. What is great is that there was already something there that you were able to set in place of that deception, something true and real.

DüÅŸünebilirdim ta en son k?y?na kadar bin katl? bir düÅŸünceyle ben seni; ve bir gülümseme süresince benim olurdun.

There is no force in the world but love, and when you carry it within you, if you simply have it, even if you remain baffled as to how to use it, it will work its radiant effects and help you out of and beyond yourself: one must never lose this belief, one must simply (and if it were nothing else) endure in it! (Letters on Life)

For this reason, my dear Sir, the only advice I have is this: to go into yourself and to examine the depths from which your life springs; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you have to write. Accept this answer as it is, without seeking to interpret it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then assume this fate and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking after the rewards that may

It is you; you are the light around these familiar intimate things.

Ich möchte dir ein Liebes schenken, das dich mir zur Vertrauten macht: aus meinem Tag ein Deingedenken und einen Traum aus meiner Nacht. Mir ist, daß wir uns selig fänden und daß du dann wie ein Geschmeid mir löstest aus den müden Händen die niebegehrte Zärtlichkeit.

Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism. Only love can grasp and hold and fairly judge them.

Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me pleasure, and you must be indulgent with the answer, which will perhaps often leave you empty-handed; for ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.

He had been so dear to me that for my entire childhood the mere thought that one day he could no longer exist brought all of nature, both outside and inside of me, to a standstill.—But actually, under the influence of ever deeper initiation, nature eventually became more expressive, touching and moving to me with every loss that I suffered as if it brought me ever closer to its heart.

And where a great and unique person speaks, the rest of us should be silent

And perhaps the sexes are more closely related than we think, and the great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in man and woman, freed of all sense of error and disappointment, seeking one another out not as opposites but as brothers and sisters and neighbours, and they will join together as human beings, to share the heavy weight of sexuality that is laid upon them with simplicity, gravity and patience.