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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“So it's back once more, back up the slope. Why do they always ruin my rope with their cuts? I felt so ready the other day, Had a real foretaste of eternity In my guts. Spoonfeeding me yet another sip from life's cup. I don't want it, won't take any more of it. Let me throw up. Life is medium rare and good, I see, And the world full of soup and bread, But it won't pass into the blood for me, Just goes to my head. It makes me ill, though others it feeds; Do see that I must deny it! For a thousand years from now at least I'm keeping a diet.”

WorldWantYearsRealLife IsFeltCuttingBloodReadyThousandLet MeEternityIllDenyBreadMediumsRuinsCupsDietsGutsThousand YearsSoupRopeSlopes
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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“We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.”

KnowsWantLooksStillsRealActorsWalksHalfRolesPiecesMouthsMirrorsRemainsSticksMereCornersRemoveDisguiseBentEyebrowsExaggerationMockery
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”

YearsNatureWelcomeResolutionNew YearNew BeginningsNew Years EveFresh StartHappy New YearNew Year's ResolutionsNew Year New BeginningNew StartNew Year New StartHappy New Year EveNew Years Eve InspirationalHappy New Year InspirationalFunny Happy New YearNew Year WishesHappy New Year LoveNew Year New MeOld YearInspirational New YearInspirational New BeginningNew Day New BeginningEndings Being New BeginningsNew Years Eve LoveNew Life New BeginningHappy New Year WishesFunny New YearsNew Years Wishes GreetingsHappy New Year GreetingsStarting A New BeginningNew Year FriendshipNew Year MotivationalNew Beginning LifeNew Beginnings In LifeNew Year Fresh StartNew Years Eve GreetingsNew Chapter In Life
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk only on feelings. That faces upward and in its mirror receives heavenly roads, which travel along themselves. That has learned to walk upon water when it scoops, that walks upon wells, transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands, changes those that are like it into a landscape: wanders and arrives within them, fills them with arrival.”

WellsFeelingsHandsFacesWaterWalksStepsPathMirrorsWanderLandscapeHeavenlySoleInteriorsArrivals
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.”

WayFeelsFirstsDoeEarthSoundDarknessSeaTasteDepthSmellGravesBitterBordersAutumnTouchingInferiorsRipeContainingFall AutumnFall SeasonAutumn Days
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Whoever you are: in the evening step out of your room, where you know everything; yours is the last house before the far-off: whoever you are. With your eyes, which in their weariness barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold, you lift very slowly one black tree and place it against the sky: slender, alone. And you have made the world. And it is huge and like a word which grows ripe in silence. And as your will seizes on its meaning, tenderly your eyes let it go.”

KnowsWorldMadeEyeLastsHouseGrowsBlackRoomsSilenceStepsTreeSkyHugeEveningLiftsWornLet It GoRipeThresholdWearinessWorn OutSlenderYour Room
Book:The Book of Images
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“They all have tired mouths and bright seamless souls. And a longing (as for sin) sometimes haunts their dreams. They are almost all alike; in God's gardens they keep still, like many, many intervals in his might and melody. Only when they spread their wings are they wakers of a wind: as if God with his broad sculptor- hands leafed through the pages in the dark book of the beginning.”

IfsStillsBookSoulSometimesDreamHandsMightDarkSinWindPagesMouthsGardenLongingTiredWingsSpreadMelodyBroadsIntervalsSculptorsSeamless
Book:The Book of Images
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“O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house... but in which house?... I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray... And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens.”

KnowsYearsBelieveHeartLongHas BeensStillsEndsLightFacesHouseHeavenStarsVoiceWhiteCitiesVisionHeardSkyPrayingThousandQuietAll ThingsShiningStrikesPassingPassingsBoatClockRaysAnxiousThousand YearsPassed AwayImmensity
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. Love is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”

WorldHumansPhilosophyLastsIndividualDifficultHuman BeingsLove IsTasksTestsUltimateClaimsSakeProofPreparation
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“we are continually overflowing toward those who preceded us, toward our origin, and toward those who seemingly come after us. ... It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again “invisibly,” inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.”

EarthTasksEssenceStoresInvisibleGoldenVisibleTemporaryHoneyBeesHives
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenFeelsLittlesEnoughFeelingsAnimalCitiesMorningFlowerBirdSakeGesturesVerses
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
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