Rilke's Book of Hours Quotes

“I live my life in widening circles That reach out across the world.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“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.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke's the Book of Hours: A New Translation with Commentary

“If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. ”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke's the Book of Hours: A New Translation with Commentary

“I live my life in growing orbits which move out over this wondrous world, I am circling around God, around ancient towers and i have been circling for a thousand years. And I still dont know if I am an eagle or a storm or a great song.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“You, God, who live next door--

If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking--
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you're all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there's no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I'm right here...

Sen komşu tanrı,
Uzun geceler bazen,
Kapına vura vura uyandırıyorsam seni
Solumanı seyrek duyduğumdandır...
Bilirim, yalnızsın odanda.
Sana birşey gerekse kimse yok,
Bir yudum su versin aradığında.
Hep dinlerim, yeter ki bir ses edin,
Öyle yakınım sana...”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open. ”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“...If we surrendered

to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again...

to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

(from the poem "How Sure Gravity's Law")”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke's the Book of Hours: A New Translation with Commentary

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“I live my life in widening circle
That reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
But I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
And I still don't know: am I a falcon,
A storm, or a great song? [I, 2]”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Das Stundenbuch”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“You, darkness, of whom I am born- I love you more than the flame that limits the world to the circle it illumines and excludes the rest.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God