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Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes - Page 8

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He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence.

He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Life, Determination, Doe
"Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke". Book by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1960.

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you. Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you. And without feet I can make my way to you, without a mouth I can swear your name. Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you with my heart as with a hand. Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat. And if you consume my brain with fire, I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Heart, Eye, Fire

Let your beauty manifest itself without talking and calculation.​ You are silent. It says for you: I am. And comes in meaning thousandfold​, comes at long last over everyone.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Talking, Long, Lasts
Rainer Maria Rilke (2014). “The Book of Images”, p.107, North Point Press

Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future lessens . . . . Superabundant existence wells in my heart.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Heart, Childhood, Looks
Rainer Maria Rilke, Lou Andreas-Salomé (2008). “Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters”, p.303, W. W. Norton & Company

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Solitude, Wedding Day, Good Marriage

Animals see the unobstructed world with their whole eyes. But our eyes, turned back upon themselves, encircle and seek to snare the world, setting traps for freedom.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Eye, Animal, World

All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Blood, Mind, Of My Mind
Rainer Maria Rilke (1945). “Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910”

Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Greatness, Childhood, Doe

Deeply I go down into myself. My god is Dark and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence.

Rainer Maria Rilke
God, Dark, Roots
Rainer Maria Rilke (1981). “Selected Poems”

It is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Solitude, Trying, Cost
"The Middle of Things: Advice for Young Writers" by Andrew Solomon, www.newyorker.com. March 11, 2015.

It is true that these mysteries are dreadful, and people have always drawn away from them. But where can we find anything sweet and glorious that would never wear this mask, the mask of the dreadful? Whoever does not, sometimes or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life, can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power of our existence; can only walk on its edge, and one day, when the judgment is given, will have been neither alive nor dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Sweet, People, Giving
Rainer Maria Rilke (2014). “The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition”, p.223, Vintage

Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation. When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are rarely the center of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letting Go, Curves, Circles
Rainer Maria Rilke, “For Hans Carossa”

You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing That is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks As it divides and rejoins behind you. The trees you planted in childhood have grown Too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Air, Breathing, Giving
Rainer Maria Rilke (2005). “In Praise of Mortality: Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus”, Riverhead Books (Hardcover)

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Writing, Heart, Roots
Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Lying, Opportunity, Two
Rainer Maria Rilke (1960). “Selected letters”

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Able, Endure, Terror
Rainer Maria Rilke (2014). “The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition”, p.3, Vintage

only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Relationship, Alive, Sound

I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Dark, Mind, Letters
Rainer Maria Rilke, Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy (1996). “Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God”, Riverhead Trade (Paperbacks)

When we are only victorious over small things, it leaves us feeling small.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Feelings, Small Things

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
Fall, Light, Hoe
Rainer Maria Rilke (1981). “Selected Poems”

And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Believe, Fall, Years
Rainer Maria Rilke (1969). “Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910”, p.253, W. W. Norton & Company

I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Lying, Want, Secretive
Rainer Maria Rilke (1981). “Selected Poems”

Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, seperate, in the evening.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Yesterday, Bird, Evening
Rainer Maria Rilke, “You Who Never Arrived”

Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Falling In Love, Heart, Falling Apart
Rainer Maria Rilke (1957). “The Duino elegies”

I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Dream, Reality, Contemplation
Rainer Maria Rilke (1969). “Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910”, p.101, W. W. Norton & Company

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