Quotes About Purpose

You are nearing the land that is life; you will recognize it by its seriousness.

sometimes a man stands up during supper and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking, because of a church that stands somewhere in the East. And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead. And another man, who remains inside his own house, stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses, so that his children have to go far out into the world toward that same church, which he forgot.

Confess to yourself in the deepest hour of the night whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. Dig deep into your heart, where the answer spreads its roots in your being, and ask yourself solemnly, Must I write?

Isn't it time that, loving, we freed ourselves from the beloved, and, trembling, endured: as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be, in its flight, something more than itself?

This, above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? Delve deep into yourself. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this question witha strong and simple 'I must' then build your lfie according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.

But to be what I am, to live what I was meant to live, to want to sound like no one else, to yield the blossoms dictated to my heart: this is what I want - and this surely cannot be arrogance. (Letters on Life)

I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. Perhaps I can never achieve the last, but that will be my attempt. I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.

For somewhere reigns an old hostility / between living one's Life and doing one's Work.

Why must a man be always taking on Things not his own, as if he were a servant whose marketing-bag grows heavier and heavier from stall to stall and, loaded down, he follows and doesn't dare ask: Master, why this banquet?

that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write; examine whether it sends its roots down to the deepest places of your heart, confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you. This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour

Continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you take part in what is greatest. The more strongly you cultivate this belief inside of you, the more it will give rise to reality and world.

confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you.

The main thing was to be living. That was the main thing.

Confessez-vous à vous-même: mourriez-vous s'il vous était défendu d'écrire ?

So whoever loves must try to act as if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!

Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. This above all: ask yourself in your night's quietest hour: must I write?

Even on days when fate wishes to bestow boundless gifts on them, most people make mistakes in accepting: they don't accept straightforwardly and consequently lose something while doing so, they take with a secondary purpose in mind, or they accept what is given to them as if they were being compensated for something else.

Est-ce en exemple que tu te proposes? Peut-on se remplir comme les roses, en multipliant sa subtile matière qu'on avait faite pour ne rien faire? Car ce n'est pas travailler que d'être une rose, dirait-on. Dieu, en regardant par la fenêtre, fait la maison.

Everything assigned to us is a challenge; nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters.

Your inmost happening is worth your whole love, that is what you must somehow work at, and not lose too much time and too much courage in explaining

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.

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.