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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“She followed slowly, taking a long time, As though there were some obstacles in the way; And yet: as though, once it was overcome, She would be beyond all walking, and would fly.”

WayLongWould BeWalkingLong TimeOvercomingObstacles
Book:The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin
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“Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows' wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle risings that find expression in the empty trees.”

LittlesCountryEarthWaterSpaceTreeChangedExpressionSpringSingingEmptyRisingUnexpectedSubtleTendernessAccentsReplacedGreyLanesMeadowsSoftnessHarshness
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“I don’t want to stand before you like a thing, shrewd, secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, as it goes toward action. And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times, when something is coming near, I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. I want to unfold. I don’t want to be folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.”

KnowsWantSometimesActionMovingLyingMy OwnSecretSilentSecretive
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, to gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves - not until then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.”

FirstsStillsEnoughHappensAbleWaitingHoursMemoriesForgetBloodAriseMidstGesturesVersesGlancesDistinguishedNamelessGreat Patience
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“And we, spectators always, everywhere, looking at, never out of, everything! It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses. We re-arrange it, and collapse ourselves. Who's turned us round like this, so that we always, do what we may, retain the attitude of someone who's departing? Just as he, on the last hill, that shows him all his valley for the last time, will turn and stop and linger, we live our lives, for ever taking leave.”

MayShowsLastsTurnsAttitudeOur LivesRoundsHillsValleysCollapseLast TimeSpectatorsDeparting
Book:Possibility of Being: A Selection of Poems
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“Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside”

MightArtistTurnsSoundAnswersAcceptingDestinyGreatnessSourceBearsTestsAskingRewardsBurdenInquiring
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“I am learning to see. I don't know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn't stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of... What's the use of telling someone that I am changing? If I'm changing, I am no longer who I was; and if I am something else, it's obvious that I have no acquaintances. And I can't possibly write to strangers.”

IfsKnowsWritingI CanUseUsedObviousStrangerInteriorsAcquaintance
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“You, God, who live next door - If at times, through the long night, I trouble you with my urgent knocking - this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom. I know you're all alone in that room. If you should be thirsty, there's no one to get you a glass of water. I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign! I'm right here... Sen komşu tanrı, Uzun geceler bazen, Kapına vura vura uyandırıyorsam seni Solumanı seyrek duyduğumdandır... Bilirim, yalnızsın odanda. Sana birşey gerekse kimse yok, Bir yudum su versin aradığında. Hep dinlerim, yeter ki bir ses edin, Öyle yakınım sana.”

IfsKnowsGivingShouldLongNightNextWaitingWaterRoomsTroubleDoorsListeningGive MeGlassesBreatheUrgentKnockingThirstyAll AloneLong NightsYaksSana
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“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.”

KnowsStillsCountrySometimesHouseStreetsBirdGardenWindowMirrorsLongingYesterdayEveningBelovedShopsDizzyYour PresencePensiveCountry Houses
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“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.”

IfsMenWorldChildrenSometimesHouseChurchWalksWalkingBlessingRemainsGlassesEastDishesAnother ManSupper
Book:Selected poems
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“I am so afraid of people's words.They describe so distinctly everything: And this they call dog and that they call house, here the start and there the end. I worry about their mockery with words, they know everything, what will be, what was; no mountain is still miraculous; and their house and yard lead right up to God. I want to warn and object: Let the things be! I enjoy listening to the sound they are making. But you always touch: and they hush and stand still. That's how you kill.”

PeopleKnowsWantStillsEndsHouseEnjoySoundWorryDogObjectsListeningMountainYardsMiraculousMockeryHush
Book:Pictures of God: Rilke's Religious Poetry Including
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“Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend. Don’t ask for advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is strength and blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

IfsBelieveChildrenUseAsksWishParentUnderstandingStepsAdviceMaterialsDramaBlessingWasteParentingUnconditional LoveHave FaithProvidingEldersInheritanceUnconditionalChildren And Parents
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Perhaps the great renewal of the world will consist of this, that man and woman, freed of all confused feelings and desires, shall no longer seek each other as opposites, but simply as members of a family and neighbors, and will unite as human beings, in order to simply, earnestly, patiently, and jointly bear the heavy responsibility of sexuality that has been entrusted to them.”

MenWorldHumansHas BeensFeelingsDesireOrderHuman BeingsResponsibilityBearsMembersMen And WomenOppositesHeavySexualityNeighborConfusedRenewal
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divinings, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.”

KnowsWayLittlesMomentsFeelingsJoyGrowsGreaterSadnessSilentEndureShyMidstSomething NewStillnessMutePerplexity
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.”

WantWholeFeelingsSeemsBitsWaitingHoursAnswersGrowingAdviceDevelopmentAddJust OneEmphasis
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“My life is not this steeply sloping hour, in which you see me hurrying. Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree; I am only one of my many mouths, and at that, the one that will be still the soonest. I am the rest between two notes, which are somehow always in discord because Death’s note wants to climb over— but in the dark interval, reconciled, they stay there trembling. And the song goes on, beautiful.”

WantStillsTwoBeautifulLife IsSongHoursDarkBehindsTreeGoes OnMouthsNotesClimbsTremblingIntervalsDiscordHurrying
Book:Selected poems
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