Duino Elegies

“Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his stronger existence. For beauty's nothing but the beginning of terror we're still just able to bear.”

FearEmotionBeautyLonelinessComfortTerrorAngels

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“Yes, the Springs needed you. Many a star was waiting for your eyes only. A wave swelled toward you out of the past, or as you walked by the open window a violin inside surrendered itself to pure passion. All that was your charge. But were you strong enough? Weren't you always distracted by expectation, as though each such moment presaged a beloved's coming? (But where would you keep her, with all those big strange thoughts in you going and coming and sometimes staying all night?)”

LoveWonderLivingDistractionBeing Alive

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“How oddly akin is the hero to the early dead. Duration doesn't interest him. For him, only ascent matters, steadfastly he drives on and enters the altered constellation of his constant danger. There few would find him. But fate, which grimly shuts us in silence, suddenly inspired sings him into the storm of his uproaring world.”

DeathHeroes

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“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me against his heart: I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.”

BeautyTerror

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“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.”

BeautyTerror

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“Even when the lights go out, even when someone says to me: "It's over---," even when from the stage a gray gust of emptiness drifts toward me, even when not one silent ancestor sits beside me anymore---not a woman, not even the boy with the brown squint-eye: I'll sit here anyway. One can always watch.”

PoetryPoetPoemPoetry QuotesPoemsPoeticPoets

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“So much it availed, you coming to him at night; his destiny, tall in its cloak, stepped back behind the cupboard, and his unquiet future, easily shifting, fitted itself into the folds of the curtain.”

DestinyThe Future

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“Earth, isn't this what you want: to arise in us invisible?—Isn't your dream one day to be invisible?”

The Earth

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“Does the cosmic space, we dissolve into, taste of us then?”

Zen Koan

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