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Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes - Page 15

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But you, divine poet, you sang on till the end as the swarm of rejected maenads attacked you, shrieking, you overpowered their noise with harmony, and from pure destruction arose your transfigured song.

But you, divine poet, you sang on till the end as the swarm of rejected maenads attacked you, shrieking, you overpowered their noise with harmony, and from pure destruction arose your transfigured song.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Song, Maenads, Noise
Rainer Maria Rilke (2014). “The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition”, p.133, Vintage

Comfort me from wherever you are–alone, we are quickly worn out; if I place my head on the road, let it seem softened by you. Could it be that even from afar we offer each other a gentle breath?

Rainer Maria Rilke
Comfort, Afar, Worn
Rainer Maria Rilke (1986). “The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke”

Earth, is not this what you will: in us to rise up invisible? Is it, O Earth, not your dream once to be wholly invisible? Earth! Invisible! What, if not change, is your desperate mission?

Rainer Maria Rilke
Dream, What If, Earth

O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house... but in which house?... I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray... And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Stars, Believe, Heart
Rainer Maria Rilke, “Lament (O How All Things Are Far Removed)”

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.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Children, Blessing, Men
Rainer Maria Rilke (1981). “Selected Poems”

Why don't you conceive of God as an ally who is coming, who has been approaching since time began, the one who will someday arrive, the fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? Why not project his birth into the future, and live your life as an excruciating and lyrical moment in the history of a prodigious pregnancy?

Rainer Maria Rilke
Pregnancy, Tree, Live Your Life

If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Sadness, Joy, Littles
Rainer Maria Rilke, Maurice Betz, Will Stone (2012). “Rilke in Paris”, p.51, Hesperus Press

Never believe fate is more than the condensation of childhood.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Believe, Fate, Destiny
Rainer Maria Rilke (2013). “Duino Elegies/Duineser Elegien: A Dual-Language Book”, p.53, Courier Corporation

Und dasTotsein ist mu« hsam und voller Nachholn, dass man allm a« hlich ein wenig Ewigkeit spu« rt. And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Hard Work, Men, Eternity

Everything in the world of things and animals is still filled with happening, which you can take part in.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Animal, World, Filled
Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety - like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in the palm of its hand and will not let you fall.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Faith, Fear, Moving

Everything is gestation and then birthing.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Gestation, Birthing
Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Emotional, Sides, Lift You Up

It’s possible, I’m moving through the hard veins of heavy mountains, like an arc, alone; I’m so deep inside, I see no end in sight, and no distance: everything is getting near and everything near is turning to stone.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Distance, Moving, Sight

The creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

Rainer Maria Rilke
World, Life Is, Obsession
Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

Society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love-life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Love Life, Giving, Amusement

Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Success, Winning, Men
"Selected Poems".

Dig deep into your heart, where the answer spreads its roots in your being, and ask yourself solemnly, Must I write?

Rainer Maria Rilke
Writing, Heart, Roots

Nothing strange should befall us, but only that which has long belonged to us. We will gradually learn to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Destiny, Long, People

Those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Tasks, Serious, Difficult
Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Knowing, Doubt, Criticism
Rainer Maria Rilke (2012). “Letters to a Young Poet”, p.42, Courier Corporation

In the depths all becomes law.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Law, Depth
Rainer Maria Rilke, John J. L. Mood (1994). “Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations”, p.42, W. W. Norton & Company

May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Heart, Dark, Years

You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house - , and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon, - you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Country, Garden, Mirrors
Rainer Maria Rilke, “You Who Never Arrived”

Learn to love the questions themselves.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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