Rainer Maria Rilke > Quotes

“It is true that many young people who wrongly, that is, simply with abandon and unsolitarily, feel the oppressiveness of a failure and want to make the situation in which they have landed viable and fruitful in their own personal way—; for their nature tells them that, less even than all else that is important, can questions of love be solved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case demand a new, special, only personal answer—: but how should they, who have already flung themselves together and no longer mark off and distinguish themselves from each other, who therefore no longer possess anything of their own selves, be able to find a way out of themselves, out of the depth of their already shattered solitude?”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Nous sommes en avant tout à fait comme des nostalgies. C'est au loin, dans des arrière-plans éclatants, qu'ont lieu nos épanouissements. C'est là que sont mouvement et volonté. C'est là que se situent les histoires dont nous sommes des titres obscurs. C'est là qu'ont lieu nos accords, nos adieux, consolation et deuil. C'est là que nous sommes, alors qu'au premier plan nous allons et venons.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Notes sur la mélodie des choses

“Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehn,
wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören,
und ohne Füße kann ich zu dir gehn,
und ohne Mund noch kann ich dich beschwören.
Brich mir die Arme ab, ich fasse dich
mit meinem Herzen wie mit einer Hand,
halt mir das Herz zu, und mein Hirn wird schlagen,
und wirfst du in mein Hirn den Brand,
so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“What goes on in your innermost being is worth all your love, this is what you must work on however you can and not waste too much time and too much energy on clarifying your attitude to other people.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Some day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the feminine human being. - Rilke”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“To be an artist means: not to calculate and count; to grow and ripen like a tree which does not hurry the flow of its sap and stands at ease in the spring gales without fearing that no summer may follow. It will come.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Maledizione antica dei poeti
che invece di parlare si lamentano,
che sempre giudicano il loro sentimento
invece di formarlo; e si ostinano a pensare
che quanto in loro è lieto o triste, spetti
a loro deplorare o celebrare nella poesia.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Cabalgar, cabalgar, cabalgar, de día, de noche, de día.
Cabalgar, cabalgar, cabalgar.

Y el corazón está tan cansado ahora, y la nostalgia es tan grande. Ya no hay montañas, apenas un árbol. Nada que ose levantarse. Cabañas extrañas se acurrucan sedientas cerca de pozos corrompidos. Ninguna torre en ninguna parte. Y siempre la misma imagen. Nos sobran dos ojos. Sólo por la noche, uno cree a veces reconocer el camino. ¿Quizá por la noche rehacemos el trayecto que hemos recorrido penosamente bajo el sol extranjero? Es posible. El sol es pesado como en nuestro país en pleno verano. Pero era verano cuando nos despedimos. Los vestidos de las mujeres brillaron largo tiempo sobre el fondo de verdor. Y hace mucho tiempo que cabalgamos. Debe de ser, pues, otoño. Al menos allá lejos, donde unas mujeres tristes nos conocen.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Canción del amor y de la muerte del corneta Cristóbal Rilke / El Blondo Eckbert / El gato con botas

“We often decide in advance how we will respond to something rather than wait for the experience to play itself out according to its proper speed.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life: New Prose Translations

“And lovers also gather your inheritance.
They are the poets of one brief hour.
They kiss an expressionless mouth into a smile
as if creating it anew, more beautiful.

Awakening desire, they make a place
where pain can enter;
that’s how growing happens.
They bring suffering along with their laughter,
and longings that had slept and now awaken
to weep in a stranger’s arms.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Und du erbst das Grün,” Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (Riverhead Books, 1996)”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves...”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“I offer resistance, although I know that my heart has already been ripped out and I could not go on living even if my torturers were to leave me alone now.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

“THE BOOK OF A MONK’S LIFE
I live my life in circles that grow wide
And endlessly unroll, I may not reach the last, but on I glide
Strong pinioned toward my goal.
About the old tower, dark against the sky,
The beat of my wings hums,
I circle about God, sweep far and high
On through milleniums.
Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
Many have painted her. But there was one
Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.

My God is dark- like woven texture flowing,
A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
I only know that from
His warmth I'm growing.
More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
My branches only are swayed by the wind.

Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
In silence wrapt my
Springtime's prayer to pray?
But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
When thou art dreaming then
I am thy Dream,
But when thou art awake I am thy Will

Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
Expanding like far space star-lit and still
Into the distant mystic realm of Time.

I love my life's dark hours In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
Or letters old, I magically steep
Myself in days gone by: again I give
Myself unto the past:- again I live.
Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,

Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...
Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave '
Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm- And
Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
Are lost once more in sadness and in song.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“No constellation is as steadfast, no accomplishment as irrevocable as a connection between human beings which, at the very moment it becomes visible, works more forcefully in those invisible depths where our existence is as lasting as gold lodged in stone, more constant than a star.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation

“...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.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, from “How Sure Gravity's Law,” Rainer Maria Rilke's the Book of Hours: A New Translation with Commentary (Camden House, May 2nd 2008) Originally published April 1905.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Everything assigned to us is a challenge; nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“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,”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“in those small towns you come to realize how the cathedrals utterly outgrew their whole environment.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“You see, I am one who likes to look for things.

I am one who, barely noticed,
like a shepherd,
comes up from behind …
One who dreams of making you complete,
and in that way completes himself.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“One must never despair upon losing something, whether it’s an individual or an experience of joy or happiness; everything returns even more magnificently. (Letters on Life)”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“patience is all!”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Nothing which is, is static.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

“It was then that in all your magnificence
you were not ashamed to know me. Your breath moved tenderly
over my face. And, spread across solemn distances,
your smile entered my heart.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

“Winning does not tempt that man, This is how he grows, by being defeated decisively, by greater and greater beings.'"

"The Man Watching"
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“You know that I am not one of those individuals who neglect their body in order to turn it into an offering for their soul; my soul would not at all have appreciated such a sacrifice.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life: New Prose Translations

“Anche amare è bene: poiché l’amore è difficile. Volersi bene, da uomo a uomo: è forse questo il nostro compito più arduo, l’estremo, l’ultima prova e verifica, il lavoro che ogni altro lavoro non fa che preparare. Per questo i giovani, che sono principianti in tutto, ancora non sanno l’amore; lo devono imparare. Con tutto l’essere, con tutte le energie, raccolte intorno al loro cuore solitario, ansioso, dal battito anelante, devono imparare ad amare. Ma il tempo dell’apprendistato è sempre un tempo lungo, chiuso al mondo, e così amare è a lungo, e fin nel pieno della vita, solitudine, intenso e approfondito isolamento per colui che ama. Amare non significa fin dall’inizio essere tutt’uno, donarsi e unirsi a un altro (poiché cosa sarebbe mai unire l’indistinto, il non finito, ancora senza ordine?); è una sublime occasione per il singolo di maturare, di diventare in sé qualcosa, di diventare mondo, diventare mondo per sé per amore di un altro, è una grande, immodesta pretesa a lui rivolta, qualcosa che lo presceglie e lo chiama a vasti uffici. Solo in questo senso, come compito di lavorare a sé (“di stare all’erta e martellare notte e dì”), i giovani potrebbero usare l’amore che viene loro dato. Essere tutt’uno e donarsi e ogni sorta di comunione non è per loro (che ancora a lungo devono risparmiare e radunare), è il compimento, è forse quello per cui oggi intere vite umane ancora non sono sufficienti. In questo però i giovani sbagliano così spesso e gravemente: che essi (nella cui natura è non avere pazienza) si gettano l’uno all’altro quando l’amore li assale, si spandono così come sono, in tutto il loro disordine, scompiglio e turbamento… Ma come fare allora? (…) Se resistiamo e prendiamo su di noi questo amore come fardello e tirocinio, invece di perderci in tutto quel gioco frivolo e lieve (…) allora forse un piccolo progresso e un certo sollievo saranno percettibili a coloro che verranno molto dopo di noi (…) E questo amore più umano (…) somiglierà a quello che noi lottando con fatica andiamo preparando, l’amore che consiste in questo: che due solitudini si proteggano, si limitino e si inchinino l’una innanzi all’altra.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Lettere a un giovane poeta/Lettere a una giovane signora/Su Dio

“U Parizu sam proveo nedelje u Nacionalnoj biblioteci čitajući knjige davno željene, ali beleške koje sam tada pravio, ničemu mi ne služe, jer tokom mog čitanja sve mi je izgledalo izvanredno novo i važno, i osećao sam silno iskušenje da prepišem celu knjigu, pošto nisam mogao da je ponesem sa sobom. U stvari, zbog svog neiskustva lutam po knjigama sa stalnim i priglupim divljenjem primitivca, pa iz njih izlatim dezorijentisan, obuzet najpovršnijim odblescima. A takav sam i kad je reč o događajima koji dolaze i prolaze – lišen sam dara da biram i sposobnosti da ih vedro saberem, ogledalom okrenutim u svim smerovima, i pohvatam sve slike.

A šta me staje da se vežem za značajne stvari! Ništa, sem da tada uleću svakakve trice i kučine svakodnevnog života, brige zbog novca, koještarije i nepredvidivosti, lupanje vratima, zadasi, časovi koji otkucavaju i ne prestaju da vas podsećaju na red – sve se to oglašava ne libeći se preda mnom, trivijalno brblja iz dana u dan. Tako je bilo nekad i oduvek, ali je postalo još moćnije tokom ovih godina bez zaštite i prožetim brigama : sve prolazi kroz mene ludom brzinom, podjednako suštinsko i najuzgrednije, i nikakvo jezgro, nijedna čvrsta tačka ne može da se obrazuje u meni – postao sam mesto čitavog niza unutrašnjih susreta, ulični prelaz, a ne kuća ! A ovako ili onako, voleo bih da se dublje povučem u sebe, u manastir koji je u meni i u čijem zvoniku su okačena velika zvona.”
― Rajner Marija Rilke

“There is not much we know for sure, but one certainty that will never abandon us is that we must remain with what is difficult. It is good to be alone, because being alone is hard; the fact that something is hard is one more reason for us to do it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet: With the Letters to Rilke from the ''Young Poet''

“There are these fading, ageing girls who constantly let themselves go over the edge without resisting, strong girls, still unused in their innermost selves, who have never been loved. Perhaps, Lord, you mean me to leave everything and go love them. Otherwise why is it so difficult for me not to follow them when they pass me in the street? Why do I suddenly invent the sweetest, most nocturnal words, and why does my voice settle sweetly inside me between my throat and heart? Why do I imagine how I, with unutterable caution, would hold them to my breath, these dolls that life has been playing with, flinging their arms apart springtime after springtime for nothing, and again for nothing, until they became slack in the shoulders. They've never fallen from a very high hope, so they're not broken; but they're badly chipped already and too far gone. Only stray cats come to them in the evening in their rooms and keep giving them furtive scratches and then sleep on top of them. Sometimes I follow one of them down a couple of streets. They walk past the houses, people are continually coming along who blot them out, they go on fading until they are nothing.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge