Quotes About Rilke

Strange / to wish wishes no longer. / Strange / to see things / that seemed to / belong together / floating in every / direction.

If somewhere deep within me arises some essence of having been a child, one I never experienced, perhaps the purest childness of my childhood, I don't want to know it. Without even looking, I want to form an angel out of it and hurl him into the foremost rank of screaming angels, to remind God.

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.

Allen diesen Meinungen von Kunst, derjenigen Tolstojs mit eingeschlossen, ist aber Eines gemeinsam: es wird nicht so sehr das Wesen der Kunst betrachtet, vielmehr sind alle bemüht, sie aus ihren Wirkungen zu erklären.

I circle for millennia, around God, around the ancient tower,    and still do not know: am I hawk, a storm, or a great song?

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

That your world is in agony is no reason to turn your back on it, or to try to escape into private "spiritual" pursuits. Rilke reminded me that I had the strength and courage to walk out into the world as into my own heart, and to "love the things / as no one has thought to love them" (I, 61).

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)

Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away.

Here is the angel, who does not exist, and the devil, who does not exist; and man, who does exist, is in between them and, I cannot help it, their unreality makes him more real for me.

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

My silence was the quiet of a stone. But in these weeks of the awakening Spring Something within me has been freed- something That in the past dark years unconscious lay, Which rises now within me and commands And gives my poor warm life into your hands Who know not what I was that Yesterday. - The Woman Who Loves

From infinite longings finite deeds rise As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies, But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend And trembling from their lack of power descend- So through the falling torrent of our fears Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears. - Symbols

And surely of all the stars that perished long ago, one still exists. I think that I know which one it is-- which one, at the end of its beam in the sky, stands like a white city . . .

Only love can touch and hold [works of art] and be fair to them.

Quizá todo lo horrible, en el fondo, sea sólo una forma de desamparo que solicita nuestra ayuda.

So much it availed, you coming to him at night; his destiny, tall in its cloak, stepped back behind the cupboard, and his unquiet future, easily shifting, fitted itself into the folds of the curtain.

the idea that poetic practice requires solitude. In the vision Rilke offers, solitude is not merely a matter of being alone: it is a territory to be entered and occupied, and Rilke provides for Kappus (and the rest of us) a map of how to accomplish those ends. The first step is the simple recognition that solitude exists. A lack of connection to other people

Rilke advised, "with all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given, for you wouldn't be able to live with them, and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along someday into the answers.

The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain—the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed, finally, is the pain that underlies all pain: the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, "unutterably alone." More than anything else, attention is an act of connection.

As Rilke says, there are no classes for beginners in life, the most difficult thing is always asked of one right away.

Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.

Do continue to believe that with your feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point it, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.