Wie einer, der auf fremden Meeren fuhr,
so bin ich bei den ewig Einheimischen;
die vollen Tage stehn auf ihren Tischen,
mir aber ist die Ferne voll Figur.

In mein Gesicht reicht eine Welt herein,
die vielleicht unbewohnt ist wie ein Mond,
sie aber lassen kein Gefühl allein,
und alle ihre Worte sind bewohnt.

Die Dinge, die ich weither mit mir nahm,
sehn selten aus, gehalten an das Ihre -:
in ihrer großen Heimat sind sie Tiere,
hier halten sie den Atem an vor Scham.


Rainer Maria Rilke

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Mit deinen Augen, welche müde kaum
von der verbrauchten Schwelle sich befrein,
hebst du g...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Wenn ich nur ein Telephon habe, der Wald 
wird sich finden! Ohne Telephon kann man nur 
...
KARL KRAUS
Ich erinnere mich noch an Ihre Worte: „Die Welt ist ein Schlachthaus und ein Bordell.“ Damals sc...
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
Geschichten sind die Essenz des Lebens, Apolonia", sagte er, so ernst wie immer, und sie hatte das G...
JENNY-MAI NUYEN
Er macht mir Angst", gestand ich ihr.
Sie gab ein Prustton von sich. "Bei mir ist er die Liebe...
SAMANTHA YOUNG
Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerei und Medizin,
Und leider auch Theologie
Durchau...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
MARTIN NIEMöLLER
Du musst dir die Haare schneiden lassen", murmelte Sascha.
Er küsste sie nocheinmal und läche...
NALINI SINGH

Das verschlug mir für einen Moment die Sprache, ich hatte nicht gedacht, dass es so schlim...
MARTINA RIEMER
Während die erste Tasse Tee mir die Lippen und Kehle befeuchtet,
die zweite meine Trauer vertr...
LU TONG
Auf dem allerersten Foto, das von mir geschossen wurde, liege ich auf der Säuglingsstation, eingewi...
RAZIEL REID
Der Wahnsinn ist nur die Kehrseite der Macht, beide Ungeheuer wurden erschaffen, um einander zu näh...
FAWZI MELLAH
Sie kannst du vielleicht täuschen, aber mich nicht."
Er sah mich von der Seite an. Offenbar h...
SAMANTHA YOUNG
Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum
nicht jede wächst zur Frucht
sie schimmern hell wie...
HERMANN HESSE
Ich habe immer gedacht, dass ich die seltsamste Person auf dieser Welt bin, aber später dachte ich,...
FRIDA KAHLO
Reiten, reiten, reiten, durch den Tag,
durch die Nacht, durch den Tag.
Reiten, reiten, re...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Über des Propheten Gebein ist jedes Staubkorn
ein Pfeiler von Licht,
Aufrecht von der Ku...
AL-FAITURI
. Aber sie tatens. ER überlebte länger, aber beide hielten sich lange. Zwei der neuen SF Serien we...
STAR TREK
Mädchen kriegen Titten und vergessen, wie klug und mutig sie einmal waren. Auch Jungen haben ihre e...
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Der Kreis des Blutes Vollendung findet,
Der Stein der Weisen die Ewigkeit bindet.
Im Kleid...
KERSTIN GIER
Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn,
Röslein auf der Heiden,
war so jung und morgenschön, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Dreizehn Mann saßen auf einem Sarg,
Ho! Ho! Ho! - und ein Fass voller Rum.
Sie soffen dre...
MICHAEL ENDE
Verstehst du, Frauen sind wie Feuer, wie Flammen. Manche Frauen sind wie Kerzen, hell und freundlich...
PATRICK ROTHFUSS
auf einem spielplatz im park hat sich ein junges paar auf zwei schaukeln gesetzt und führt ein lang...
DAVID RAMIRER
Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blüh'n,
Im dunkeln Laub die Goldorangen glüh'n,
Ein ...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Die großartigste Fähigkeit des menschlichen Geistes ist vielleicht die, mit Schmerzen fertig zu we...
PATRICK ROTHFUSS
Wann immer ich vom Leben den Status quo erwarte, taucht etwas ganz unerwartetes auf. Die Weltgeschic...
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
Aber sie halten es für eine Legende!'
'Weil sie es dafür halten wollen. Vielleicht würden si...
KAI MEYER
Lucas beobachtete, wie Helen aus dem Haus rannte und in Claires Wagen sprang. Sie sah erschöpft und...
JOSEPHINE ANGELINI
Beschwipst, betrunken ... ein Gentleman würde die Situation jedenfalls nicht ausnutzen."
"Du h...
SAMANTHA YOUNG
War ich kindisch? Verdammt, ja.
War ich wütend? Und wie.
Hatte er das ver...
MARTINA RIEMER
Die älteste Sprache, sagt man, sei das Indogermanische, Indo-europäische, das Sanskrit. Aber es is...
THOMAS MANN
Siehst Du, Momo", sagte er, "es ist so: Manchmal hat man eine sehr lange Straße vor sich. Man denkt...
MICHAEL ENDE
Nicht an die Güter hänge dein Herz,
Die das Leben vergänglich zieren!
Wer besitzt, der ...
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist...
FRANZ KAFKA
Schließlich sagte ich leise: "Wie kommt's, dass du so weise bist, Effie?"
"Ich habe es siebenu...
SAMANTHA YOUNG
Das pädagogische Bedenken: „Darf man Kinder mit dem Hokuspokus afrikanischer Zauberer und böser ...
WALTER MEHRING
Was es ist

Es ist Unsinn
sagt die Vernunft
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Lieb...
ERICH FRIED
Du kannst ihn nicht mehr enttäuschen, er ist nicht mehr da.“
Riley knallte sein Glas auf die...
JAYDEN V. REEVES
Ich möchte wissen", sagte er vor sich hin, "was eigentlich in einem Buch los ist, solang es zu ist....
MICHAEL ENDE
Oh, oh. Gerade habe ich mir noch ein Wolf gelacht, aber jetzt starre ich fassungslos auf den Hipster...
NINA MACKAY
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
JOHN KEATS
einige gitarren, ein klavier, mikrophone von der decke, kleine schaumstoffpyramiden an den wänden. ...
DAVID RAMIRER
Ich bin jemand, der ich nicht bin
ich gehe, aber ich weiß nicht, wohin
ich fühle, aber i...
EUGEN RUGE
Den Haag, das zu jener Zeit um die vierzigtausend Einwohner zählte, nennt Diderot das schönste Dor...
W.G. SEBALD
Odd, the words: ‘while away the time’.
How to hold it fast the harder thing.
Who is no...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Alle meine gestohlenen Bücher tuschelten nachts miteinander, erzählten die Geschichten ihrer Entf�...
CORDULA SIMON
Ich liebe die großen Verachtenden, weil sie die großen Verehrenden sind und Pfeile der Sehnsucht n...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
In der Fabrik hing oben am Giebel, der am höchsten in den Himmel und am tiefsten in den Hof schaute...
HERTA MüLLER
Beschwichtigend hob Rafael die Arme. „Ganz ruhig. Was ist passiert?“
Erbost schüttelte Sel...
MARTINA RIEMER
Nein, fair ist das nicht, aber dass die Erde sich wie die Hölle anfühlt, liegt an unserer Erwartun...
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Die Gesamtheit dieser Produktionsverhältnisse bildet die ökonomische Struktur der Gesellschaft, di...
KARL MARX
Simon." Ihre holte ihn in die Wirklichkeit zurück. "Simon, hörst du mir überhaupt zu?"
"Hm? ...
CASSANDRA CLARE
Die schwere Verwundung Gregors, an der er über einen Monat litt -- der
Apfel blieb, da ihn nie...
FRANZ KAFKA
Jahrtausende lang haben die Menschen nicht herausgefunden, was es mit der Liebe auf sich hat. Wie vi...
STEPHENIE MEYER
Ich selbst spiele nie Billard, [...],aber ich weiß, dass man den Ball hoch oder tief, rechts oder l...
ROBERT MUSIL
Die Kunst ist ewig, ihre Formen wandeln sich.
(The art is eternal, their shapes are changing.)
RUDOLF STEINER
Und wenn ich morgens auf meinem aus dem georgischen Dorf Besch-taschen stammenden Gebetsteppich knie...
JOSEF WINKLER
Kann man Selbstbewusstsein eigentlich irgendwo in einer Dose kaufen? Du scheinst das ja zu löffeln ...
MARTINA RIEMER
Ein Traum ist nichts anderes, als eine mögliche Wirklichkeit, die nur darauf wartet, stattzufinden....
JOHN STRELECKY
Terror - manchmal offen ausgedrückt, doch meistens stillschweigend erkannt - schleicht sich in die ...
KATHLEEN BARRY
Es sind tausend Tropfen
in einer Welt
nur für uns gemacht

Tausend Tropfen
NINA HRUSA
Jahrtausende lang haben die Menschen nicht herausgefunden, was es mit der Liebe auf sich hat. Wie vi...
STEPHENIE MEYER
Ein Rezensent kommt mir manchmal vor wie der Mann, der eine Wolke beobachtet und ihr übelnimmt, da�...
ARNO SCHMIDT
Wir alle, ob schuldig oder nicht, ob alt oder jung, müssen die Vergangenheit annehmen. Wir alle sin...
RICHARD VON WEIZSäCKER
Wie es im Zeitalter der Könige naiv gewesen wäre zu glauben, dass der erstgeborene Königssohn der...
J.M. COETZEE
Dabei waren doch gerade Bücher eins der kostbarsten Geschenke auf Erden. Kunstvoll aneinandergereih...
CARINA BARTSCH
Olaf hielt sich keineswegs für etwas Besonderes; seine Heavy-Metal-Kutte und die schwarzen T-Shirts...
JULI ZEH
Der Politik trauen wir nicht von hier bis zur nächsten Türklinke, aber sie soll bitte schön für ...
PEER STEINBRüCK
Die meisten Lügen sind wahr und spinnen sich von ganz allein, kaum jemand kannte diese Wahrheit bes...
CHRISTOPH MARZI
Worte sind die blassen Schatten vergessener Namen. Und wie Namen Macht innewohnt, wohnt auch Worten ...
PATRICK ROTHFUSS
Irgendwo war mir ein Rest von Glauben an den freien Willen geblieben, aber an diesem Morgen war ich ...
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
Er erkundigte sich nach Agnes. Sie sei weggegangen, sagte ich, und er lächelte anzüglich. "Sie geh...
PETER STAMM
Wie lieb und luftig perlt die Blase
Der Witwe Klicko in dem Glase.
WILHELM BUSCH
Dafür dass wir, wie auch die Tiere, von den Pflanzen leben, ja ohne sie nicht einmal atmen könnten...
ERNST JüNGER
Das Bild vom Wirtschaftsgeschehen als einem Wettlauf oder Wettkampf ist in seinen Details etwas vers...
J.M. COETZEE
Denn wenn man an alle Völker der Erde die Aufforderung ergehen liesse, sich unter all den verschied...
HERODOTUS
Ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.

-Goethe-
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Wäre ich ein Zimmermann, würde ich dir ein Fenster zu meiner Seele zimmern.
Wenn du hineinsch...
COLLEEN HOOVER
Schleimer!", sagte Xemerius. "Die Rothaarigen sind immer Schleimer, findest du nicht auch?"
(.....
KERSTIN GIER
Ich habe sie Erfahrung gemacht, dass die Menschen aus vielen verschiedenen Schichten von Geheimnisse...
VERONICA ROTH
Wie kommuniziert man am besten das Gefühl, tot zu sein …
Ja, ich kenne das Wort kommuniziere...
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Die Realität in den 1960ern waren total anders. Um zu kommunizieren schrieben wir Briefe auf unsere...
STAR TREK
[…]

Ik spaarde me in die tijd tot het uiterste in
om minder jong te worden-
w...
TOON TELLEGEN
[…]

Ik spande me in die tijd tot het uiterste in
om minder jong te worden-
wa...
TOON TELLEGEN
Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor,
und bin so klug als wie zuvor.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Ich würde niemandem raten die Luft anzuhalten ... Abgesehen von der Filmfrage, denke...
RENE AUBERJONOIS
Rätselhafterweise ist Schriftsteller trotzdem der schönste Beruf der Welt. Mehr als das. Schriftst...
JULI ZEH
Ich habe noch nie so lebendige Kinder gesehen (...) . Sie haben weniger als die meisten Kinder in me...
JOHN STRELECKY
Schmetterlinge sehen ihre Flügel auch nicht, trotzdem haben sie welche. Sie wissen nicht, wie schö...
ADRIANA POPESCU
Wir haben Ärzte, Rechtsanwälte und extrem belesene Leute, die einige der größten Fans der Serie ...
CHASE MASTERSON
Wenn Leute uns ermutigen, unsere Träume zu verfolgen, dann warnt uns niemand davor, was passiert, w...
ADRIANA POPESCU
Wenn die Menschen wüssten, was der Tod ist, dann hätten sie keine Angst mehr vor ihm. Und wenn sie...
MICHAEL ENDE
Eine Move bin ich von keinem Land,
Meine Heimat nenne ich keinen Srrand,
Mich bindet nich...
EMPRESS ELIZABETH
Nur weil
mein Leben
unlogisch
ist,
heißt das
nicht, dass es
nicht fun...
TERENCE HORN
Spione überall, wie?«Er sah sich in dem großen Raum um, und seine Aufmerksamkeit verweilte bei ei...
TERRY PRATCHETT
Sind sie vorbestraft? Du lieber Himmel ich wußte gar nicht, dass das immer noch nötig ist." Britis...
ERIC IDLE
Ihr glaubt, ihr seid dazu verpflichtet -
ja, das wolln wir aber gar nicht - ja, das wolln wir ...
KURT TUCHOLSKY
Ich für meinen Teil denke während einer Verfolgungsjagd gern nach. Keiner stört einen, man ist al...
JONATHAN STROUD
Am Anfang merkt man noch nicht viel davon. Man hat eines Tages keine Lust mehr irgendetwas zu tun. N...
MICHAEL ENDE

More Rainer Maria Rilke

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultima...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what sho...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There may be good, but there are no pleasant marriages.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when on...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Love is like the measles. The older you get it, the worse the attack.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact intere...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful an...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultima...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Life - a sexually transmitted terminal condition.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart And try to love the questions themselves. -R...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing. ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I feel it now: there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world I know that nothing has eve...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false f...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist me...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
...live in the question.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know every bit;
...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is part of the nature of every definitive love that sooner or later it can reach the beloved only...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incompre...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Opennes...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those w...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the my...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, w...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with w...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poe...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
From THE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've bee...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet wor...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact intere...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbel...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Painting is something that takes place among the colors, and one has to leave them alone completely,...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like l...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Being in therapy is great. I spend an hour just talking about myself. It's kinda like being the guy ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to tru...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do no...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the question...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themsel...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances conti...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final
RAINER MARIA RILKE
What an unilateral life, when from the material of a renunciation, we must fashion something we love...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it m...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip o...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
But suppose the endlessly dead were to
wake in us some emblem:
they might point to the ca...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is mos...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Natur...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in o...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
O dieses ist das Tier, das es nicht giebt.
Sie wußtens nicht und habens jeden Falls
– s...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this l...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Look: the trees exist; the houses
we dwell in stand there stalwartly.
Only we
pass ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The only journey is the one within.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
So it's back once more, back up the slope.
Why do they always ruin my rope
with their cuts...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Rose, oh pure contradiction, joy
of being No-one's sleep under so many
lids.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in eve...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day i...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
But not you, O girl, nor yet his
mother,
stretched his eyebrows so fierce with
expe...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But in you is the prese...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again and fill it with maje...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Everything terrible is something that needs our love.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words th...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience al...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most event...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And these things
that keep alive on departure know that
you praise them; transient,
...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is mo...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has be...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do n...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And these Things,
which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient,
they lo...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Truly to sing, that is a different breath.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk
only on feelings. That faces upward
and i...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul?...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
Of her life, and weaves them gratefully
Into a ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it am...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to wr...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
To make myself understood and to diminish the distance between us, I called out: “I am an evening ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Why should you want to give up a child's wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and sc...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
weren’t you always
distracted by expectation, as if every event
announced a beloved? (Wh...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Now it was there. Now it was growing within me like a tumor, like a second head, and it was a part o...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them
...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Beauty is only the start of bearable terror.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Every angel is terrifying.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its root...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is mos...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
One had to take some action against fear when once it laid hold of one.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it, for though I may have had him less ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
That is the principle thing - not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-th...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
For it is not simply because of mere sluggishness alone that human relationships repeat themselves f...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I feel it now...there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world. I know that nothing has e...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I'm so glad you're here. . .it helps me realize how beautiful my world is.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themsel...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've bee...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone
RAINER MARIA RILKE
So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known,...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
[A]t bottom, and just in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for on...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for ho...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Fame is finally only the sum total of all the misunderstanding that can gather around a new name.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't e...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Loving isn't merging, surrendering, uniting with the other. Rather, it's a kind of solitude; of prof...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the co...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And witho...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being:...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
God...sat down for a moment when the dog was finished in order to watch it... and to know that it wa...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
There are quantities of human faces, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I am, O Anxious One. Don’t you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Do you remember…(doesn’t that appear in each of my letters?), do you remember that you spoke of ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Here is the time for the sayable, here
is its home.
Speak and attest. More than ever
RAINER MARIA RILKE
What goes on in your innermost being is worth all your love, this is what you must work on however y...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
But this is what ... people are so often and disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very na...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rud...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circums...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And you, Clara Westhoff, how simply and well you endured, lived through the experience, and made it ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE,
Songs of longing!

And they will resound in my letters, just as they always have, sometim...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
…As one puts a handkerchief before pent-in-breath-
no: as one presses it against a wound
RAINER MARIA RILKE
…Lovers were not, Marina, *are* not permitted to know
destruction so deeply. Must be as if th...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
...We of the here-and-now are not for a moment satisfied in the world of time, nor are we bound in i...
RAINER MARIA RILKE,
Pero en esto yerran los jóvenes tan a menudo y tan gravemente. Ellos, en cuya naturaleza está el n...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Liebe ist schwer. Liebhaben von Mensch zu Mensch: das ist vielleicht das Schwerste, was uns aufgegeb...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Mit deinen Augen, welche müde kaum
von der verbrauchten Schwelle sich befrein,
hebst du g...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
think: the hero prolongs himself, even his falling
was only a pretext for being, his latest reb...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Ninguém o pode aconselhar ou ajudar, — ninguém.
Não há senão um caminho. Procure entrar ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
After Rilke's Letters
-- by John VanDyke Wilmerding II

this is my letter to a young ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If you think your world isn’t poetic enough, or exciting enough to tell a story about, that’s no...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
How they are all about, these gentlemen
In chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced,
Like ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even no...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
You, God, who live next door--

If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
wi...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakable t...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
A kind of memory that tells us
that what we're now striving for was
once
nearer and ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
O smile, going where? O upturned look:
new, warm, receding surge of the heart--;
alas, we ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the o...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those th...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Whenever one speaks of lonely people one takes too much for granted. One thinks people all know what...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the futu...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I live my life in growing orbits which move out over this wondrous world, I am circling around God, ...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
I think of you at any time of the day and my worried thoughts accompany all your steps. The slightes...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Wenn der Alltag dir arm erscheint, klage ihn nicht an – klage dich an, daß du nicht stark genug b...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will si...
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Yet, no matter how deeply I go down into myself, my God is dark, and like a webbing made of a hundre...
RAINER MARIA RILKE