Quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke

solo quien está dispuesto a todo, quien no excluye ninguna experiencia, incluso la más incomprensible, vivirá la relación con otra persona como algo vivo y él mismo sondeará las profundidades de su propio ser.

Here is the angel, who does not exist, and the devil, who does not exist; and man, who does exist, is in between them and, I cannot help it, their unreality makes him more real for me.

Y hasta el destino mismo es como un tejido amplio y maravilloso, en cuya trama cada hilo es guiado con infinita ternura por una mano cariñosa, y colocado a la vera de otro hilo, para ser sostenido y conllevado por otro mil

We have no reason to be mistrustful of our world, for it is not against us. If it holds terrors they are our terrors, if it has its abysses these abysses belong to us, if there are dangers then we must try to love them.

Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable. occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated

We have no reason to be mistrustful of our world... If it holds terrors they are our terrors.

Wie ein Käfer, auf den man tritt, so quillst du aus dir hinaus, und dein bißchen obere Härte und Anpassung ist ohne Sinn.

If you were to give yourself over to this angel, Rilke tells the reader, some day, some night, the angel's light hands kämen denn … dich ringender zu prüfen, und gingen wie Erzürnte durch das Haus und griffen dich als ob sie dich erschüfen und brächen dich aus deiner Form heraus. would come more fiercely to interrogate you, and rush to seize you blazing like a star, and bend you as if trying to create you, and break you open, out of who you are.

It is good to say it out loud: 'Nothing happened.' Once more: 'Nothing happened.' Does that help at all?

Ein Kunstwerk ist gut, wenn es aus Notwendigkeit entstand.

Your task is to love what you don't understand.

Lo que se necesita no es más que esto: soledad, gran soledad interior. Adentrarse en sí mismo y no encontrarse con nadie durante horas: esto es lo que hay que poder alcanzar. Estar solo, como se estaba solo de niño, cuando los adultos andaban enredados con cosas que parecían importantes y grandes, porque los mayores parecían muy ocupados y porque uno no comprendía nada de lo que hacían.

a ghost, though invisible, still is like a place

No se analice demasiado. No se aventure a sacar conclusiones de lo que le ocurre; solo deje que ocurra.

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.

Wie meine Träume nach Dir schrein. Wir sind uns mühsam fremd geworden, Jetzt will es mir die Seele morden Dies arme, bange Einsamsein. Kein Hoffen, das die Segel bauscht. Nur diese weite, weisse Stille, In die mein thatenloser Wille In athemlosem Bangen lauscht.

Si votre vie quotidienne vous paraît pauvre, ne l'accusez pas; accusez-vous plutôt, dites-vous que vous n'êtes pas assez poète pour en convoquer les richesses. Pour celui qui crée, il n'y a pas, en effet, de pauvreté ni de lieu indigent, indifférent.

wonder if he was really suited to the career for which he was preparing. His academy's chaplain happened to see a book of Rilke's poems in the cadet's hands.

You see, I want a lot. Maybe I want it all: the darkness of each endless fall, the shimmering light of each ascent. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Du Siehst, ich will viel," Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God , trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (Riverhead Books, 1996)

But alas, with poems one accomplishes so little when one writes them early. One should hold off and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, a long life if possible, and then, right at the end, one could perhaps write ten lines that are good. For poems are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough—they are experiences.

Ich finde dich in allen diesen Dingen,] Ich finde dich in allen diesen Dingen, denen ich gut und wie ein Bruder bin; als Samen sonnst du dich in den geringen und in den großen giebst du groß dich hin. Das ist das wundersame Spiel der Kräfte, daß sie so dienend durch die Dinge gehn: in Wurzeln wachsend, schwindend in die Schäfte und in den Wipfeln wie ein Auferstehn.

There is only a single, urgent task: to attach oneself someplace to nature, to that which is strong, striving and bright with unreserved readiness, and then to move forward in one's efforts without any calculation or guile, even when engaged in the most trivial and mundane activities. (Letters on Life)

Who among us would not have to strive for this above everything else: to reach such security in one's ability that one has always the correct counterweights ready within one's conscience to offset the judgment that arrives from the outside.

For fame is ultimately but the summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name