Quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke

am glad, in a word, that you have withstood the dangers of slipping into all this, and that somewhere you are living alone and courageous in a rough reality. May the year to come maintain and strengthen you in it. Ever yours, R. M. Rilke

The main thing was being alive. That was the main thing.

My silence was the quiet of a stone. But in these weeks of the awakening Spring Something within me has been freed- something That in the past dark years unconscious lay, Which rises now within me and commands And gives my poor warm life into your hands Who know not what I was that Yesterday. - The Woman Who Loves

Read as little as possible of aesthetic criticism - such things are either partisan views, petrified and grown senseless in their lifeless induration, or they are clever quibblings in which today one view wins and tomorrow the opposite. Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and with nothing so little to be reached as with criticism.

If we imagine our being as a room of any size, it seems that most of us know only a single corner of that room, a spot by the window, a narrow strip on which we keep walking back and forth. That gives a kind of security. But isn't insecurity with all its dangers so much more human? We are not prisoners of that room.

Si la seva vida quotidiana li sembla pobra, no la blasmi; blasmi's vostè mateix, digui's que no és prou poeta per invocar-ne les riqueses.

But on the other hand, I am very concerned when I imagine how strangled and cut off you currently live, afraid of touching anything that is filled with memories and what is not filled with memories?). You will freeze in place if you remain this way. You must not, dear. You have to move. You have to return to his things. You have to touch with your hands his things, which through their manifold relations and affinity are after all also yours.

Others must by a long dark way Stray to the mystic bards, Or ask some one who has heard them sing Or touch the magic chords. Only the maidens question not The bridges that lead to Dream; Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls On a silver vase agleam. The maidens' doors of Life lead out Where the song of the poet soars, And out beyond to the great world- To the world beyond the doors. - Maidens

There is only one way: go into yourself. Seek out the reason that commands you to write; discover if it has stretched out its roots into the deepest part of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would have to die if it were forbidden you to write.

For, if we think of this existence of the individual as a room - be it large or small - it is evident that most people only get to know a corner of their room, a corner by the window, a strip on which they walk up or down.

This again is one of the hardest tests of the creative individual: he must always remain unconscious, unsuspecting of his best virtues, if he would not rob them of their ingenuousness and untouchedness!

From infinite longings finite deeds rise As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies, But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend And trembling from their lack of power descend- So through the falling torrent of our fears Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears. - Symbols

Ultimately nobody can help anyone else in life; one has this recurring experience in every conflict and confusion: that one is alone. This is not as bad as it may appear at first glance; it is also the best thing about life that everyone contains everything within himself: his fate, his future, his entire scope and world.

My body glows in every vein and blooms To fullest flower since I first knew thee, My walk unconscious pride and power assumes; Who art thou then- thou who awaitest me? When from the past I draw myself the while I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall; I only know the radiance of thy smile, Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all. - Offering

Try to express what you see and experience and love and lose as if you were the first man alive.

The more human we become, the more different we become.

To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life: in understanding as in creating.

Without looking at a particular one, standing in the middle between two rooms, one feels their presence drawing together into a colossal reality. As if these colors could heal one of indecision once and for all.

And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me, life is right in every case.

How much childhood is in that picture, and how everything is already settled there in the quiet, so indescribably lonely state of being a child, at the time when seated in an armchair one cannot touch the floor and with immense courage just keeps sitting there in that vast space which begins all around one and goes on and on. It is a very sweet and meaningful small picture. Thank you for letting me see it.

daß man nicht das Recht hatte, ein Buch aufzuschlagen, wenn man sich nicht verpflichtete, alle zu lesen

Always trust yourself. If it turns out you are wrong, then that natural course of your inner life will lead you to other insights.

A happy poet who writes about his window and the glass doors of his bookcases that reflect pensively a beloved, lonely vastness. This is the poet I would have liked to become (...)

Perhaps everything fearful is basically helplessness that seeks our help.