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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“For it is not only lethargy alone which causes human relationships to repeat themselves in the same old way with such unspeakable monotony in instance after instance; it is the fearful shying away from any kind of new, unforseeable experience which we think we may not be equal to. But only someone who is ready for anything and rules nothing out, not even the most enigmatic things, will experience the relationship with another person as a living thing and will himself live his own existence to the full. For imagining an individual's existence as a larger or smaller room reveals to us that most people are only acquainted with one corner of their particular room, a place by the window, a little area to pace up and down. That way, they have a certain security.”

SecurityExperienceOppenness
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“It is all about praising. Created to praise, his heart is a winepress destined to break, that makes for us an eternal wine. His voice never chokes with dust when words for the sacred come through. All becomes vineyard. All becomes grape, ripening in the southland of his being. Nothing, not even the rot in royal tombs, or the shadow cast by a god, gives the lie to his praising. He is ever the messenger, venturing far through the doors of the dead, bearing a bowl of fresh-picked fruit.”

PraiseOrpheusPraising
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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“There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, “I must,” then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge.”

WritingArtDestiny
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“How the bird cry seizes us … The creation once, of any cry. But even the children, playing in the open air, Cry out, beyond all true cries. Chance cries out. Into the spaces between All of these vastnesses of a world, (where the broken Bird cry insinuates itself, like men in dreams -) They drive and pound in their screeching, like wedges. So where on earth are we then? We break freer and freer, Hunting, like kites which have snapped loose Half way up, with laughing borders, Shredded by the wind. – Array all those who cry out, Oh god who sings! that they may awaken with a roar, Bearing upon them as a current the head and the lyre.”

FreedomPrayerCacophonySounds Of Life
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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“Para el verdadero creador no hay pobreza ni lugares comunes. Y aunque se encontrase encerrado en una prisión cuyos muros impidieran que el fragor del mundo alcanzase su entendimiento, ¿no podría recurrir siempre a su infancia, ese reino delicioso, esa cámara del tesoro que alberga tantos recuerdos?”

SuperaciónImaginaciónNiñezLimitacionesBarrerasExploración
Book:Cartas a un joven poeta / Elegías de Duino
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“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose... ...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”

InspirationalWritingArtPoetryCreativityAct Of Creation
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Nodig is toch alleen: eenzaamheid, een grote innerlijke eenzaamheid. Zichzelf aan de tand voelen en urenlang niemand ontmoeten, dat moet men kunnen bereiken. Eenzaam zijn zoals je als kind eenzaam was toen de volwassenen in zaken verwikkeld rondliepen die belangrijk en groot leken, omdat de grote mensen er zo bedrijvig uitzagen en je van hun doen en laten niets begreep. En als je dan op een dag inziet dat hun bezigheden armzalig zijn, hun beroepen verstard en niet meer verbonden met het leven, waarom dan niet er met de ogen van een kind naar blijven kijken als naar iets vreemds, en wel vanuit de diepte van je eigen wereld, vanuit de weidsheid van je eigen eenzaamheid, die zelf werk is, status en beroep? - Rome, 23 december 1903”

EenzaamheidAlleen Zijn
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“En als wij weer over de eenzaamheid praten, dan wordt steeds duidelijker dat dat in wezen niet iets is wat je kunt uitzoeken of nalaten. Wij zijn eenzaam. Men kan zichzelf zand in de ogen strooien en doen alsof het niet zo is. Dat is alles. Maar hoeveel beter is het niet om in te zien dat wij het wel zijn, en daar gewoon vanuit te gaan. Het zal ons dan wel duizelen; want alle punten waarop ons oog gewoon was te rusten, worden ons afgenomen, niets is meer nabij en al wat ver is is oneindig ver. Wie vanuit zijn kamer, nagenoeg onvoorbereid en onverhoeds, op de top van een hoge berg zou worden neergezet, zou iets soortgelijks moeten voelen: een weergaloze onzekerheid, het overgeleverd zijn aan iets onbekends zou hem bijna te gronde richten. Borgeby Gård Flädie, Zweden, 12 augustus 2017”

EenzaamheidAlleen Zijn
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“Selam o ruha, bizi birleştirebilen! Gerçek hayatımız simgededir ancak. Yürür saatler küçük adımlar atarak asıl bizim olan güne eşlik ederken. Biz, nerde olduğumuzu bilmeyenler, gerçek bağlantılar kurarız kendimize. Antenleri aranır durur antenler, boş uzaklığın getirdiyse... saf gerginlik. Ey güçlerin musikisi! Bütün tedirginliklere karşı sizi sıradan işler değil mi koruyanlar ? Ne denli çalışıp didinse de köylü, erişemez tohumun yaza dönüştüğü derinliklere. Topraktandır armağanlar.”

HayatDünyaAnlamToprak Ana
Book:Seçilmiş Şiirler & Duino Ağıtları
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“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”

InspirationalPoetryChangeAttitudeCourageSadnessStrengthDepressionWeaknessTransformationDragonsHelplessnessFears
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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“(…) und ich möchte Sie, so gut ich es kann bitten, Geduld zu haben gegen alles Ungelöste in Ihrem Herzen und zu versuchen, die Fragen selbst lieb zu haben, wie verschlossene Stuben und wie Bücher, die in einer fremden Sprache geschrieben sind. Forschen Sie jetzt nicht nach den Antworten, die Ihnen nicht gegeben werden können, weil Sie sie jetzt nicht leben könnten. Und es handelt sich darum, alles zu leben. Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen. Vielleicht leben Sie dann allmählich, ohne es zu merken, eines fernen Tages in die Antworten hinein.”

FragenGeduldBriefe
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Does time really exist, time the destroyer? When will it break down the castle into mere fragments? When will this heart which has always been in the service of the gods Be governed by the Creator, the Demiurge? Are we really so desperately fragile As Fate would wish to make us? Is childhood, which is so deep, so full of promise, Later stilled at its root? Oh, the spectre of perishability, How it infiltrates and passes through the innocently receptive, As if it were smoke! And we, we who are drifting, We still rank as a divine rite Amongst those lasting Powers.”

TimeDivinityDecayGrowing PainsRotHuman Mortality
Book:Sonnets to Orpheus
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“A complete sharing between two people is an impossibility and whenever it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a mutual agreement which robs either one member or both of his fullest freedom and development. But, once the realization is accepted that, even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!”

LoveMarriage
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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