Quotes About Life

It is still this death which continues inside of me, which works in me, which transforms my heart, which deepens the red of my blood, which bears down heavily on the life that had been ours so that this death becomes a bittersweet drop coursing through my veins and permeating everything, and which ought to be mine forever.

The leaves fall, fall as from far, Like distant gardens withered in the heavens; They fall with slow and lingering descent. And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls From out the stars into the Solitude. Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall And lo! the other one:—it is the law. But there is One who holds this falling Infinitely softly in His hands. - Autumn

Da dürfen Sie ... nicht erschrecken, wenn eine Traurigkeit vor Ihnen sich aufhebt, so groß, wie Sie noch keine gesehen haben; wenn eine Unruhe, wie Licht und Wolkenschatten, über Ihre Hände geht und über all Ihr Tun. Sie müssen denken, daß etwas an Ihnen geschieht, daß das Leben Sie nicht vergessen hat, daß es Sie in der Hand hält; es wird Sie nicht fallen lassen.

What poet's persuasion can reconcile the length of those days with the brevity of life?

Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love. Death stands before eternity and says YES.

And if there is one thing more that I must say to you, it is this: Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Like the curved pipe of a fountain, your arching boughs drive the sap downward and up again: and almost without awakening it bursts out of sleep, into its sweetest achievement. Like the god stepping into the swan.

The longer i live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed into magnificent sense.

Being dead filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit suffused with its own mystery and sweetness, she was filled with her vast death, which was so new, she could not understand that it had happened.

Truly being here is glorious.

I'm still alive, I have time to build My blood will outlast the rose.

We can so easily slip back from what we have struggled to attain, abruptly, into a life we never wanted; can find that we are trapped, as in a dream, and die there, without ever waking up. This can occur. Anyone who has lifted his blood into a years-long work may find that he can't sustain it, the force of gravity is irresistible, and it falls back, worthless. For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work.

Gefährlich und schlecht sind nur jene Traurigkeiten, die man unter die Leute trägt, um sie zu übertönen; wie Krankheiten, die oberflächlich und töricht behandelt werden, treten sie nur zurück und brechen nach einer kleinen Pause um so furchtbarer aus; und sammeln sich an im Innern und sind Leben, sind ungelebtes, verschmähtes, verlorenes Leben, an dem Man sterben kann.

Death is great. We are his completely with laughing eyes. When we feel ourselves immersed in life, he dares to weep immersed in us. (Der Tod ist groß. Wir sind die Seinen lachenden Munds. Wenn wir uns mitten im Leben meinen, wagt er zu weinen mitten in uns.)

No, we don't accomplish our love in a single year as the flowers do; an immemorial sap flows up through our arms when we love. (Siehe, wir lieben nicht, wie die Blumen, aus einem einzigen Jahr; uns steigt, wo wir lieben, unvordenklicher Saft in die Arme.)

Take the destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

Don't petals of soft words float upon your blood?

Why should you want to exclude from your life all unsettling, all pain, all depression of spirit, when you don't know what work it is these states are performing within you?

Things are not as easy to understand and say as we might prefer to believe; most events are inexpressible, happening in a space where no word has ever set foot, and most inexpressible of all are works of art, mysterious existences, whose life continues as ours passes away.

It is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it... that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it...To love is good, too: love being difficult.

A world will come over you, the happiness, the abundance, the incomprehensible immensity of a world. Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,—it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experience, disappointments and joys.

Only those sadnesses are dangerous and bad which one carries about among people in order to drown them out; like sicknesses that are superficially and foolishly treated they simply withdraw and after a little pause break out again the more dreadfully; and accumulate within one and are life, are unlived, spurned, lost life, of which one may die.

You are not dead yet, it's not too late to open your depths by plunging into them and drink in the life that reveals itself quietly there.