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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in the hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give oneself wholly away.”

MenGivingHandsDifficultLove IsConflictOneselfImpulse
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
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“It is true that these mysteries are dreadful, and people have always drawn away from them. But where can we find anything sweet and glorious that would never wear this mask, the mask of the dreadful? Whoever does not, sometimes or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life, can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power of our existence; can only walk on its edge, and one day, when the judgment is given, will have been neither alive nor dead.”

PeopleGivingDoeHas BeensSometimesGivenWalksExistenceAliveMysterySweetOne DayJudgmentEdgesPossessionGloriousAbundanceMaskConsentJoyous
Book:The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition
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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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“I live my life in widening circle That reach out across the world. I may not ever complete the last one, But I give myself to it. I circle around God, that primordial tower. I have been circling for thousands of years, And I still don't know: am I a falcon, A storm, or a great song? [I, 2]”

KnowsWorldGivingYearsMayHas BeensStillsLastsSongStormCirclesReach OutTowersLiving My LifeI Live My LifeFalcon
Book:Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
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“All companionship can consist in only the strengthening of neighboring solitudes, giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to become closer to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling – I have learned over and over again, there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another.”

PeopleGivingPersonsTwoTogetherOrderFallDifficultSolitudeOneselfAbandonI Have LearnedCompanionshipLove One AnotherStrengtheningBeing Together
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.”

KnowsGivingI CanCountryFeelingsHandsBigsHappensMovingNightSpeakLosesWalksLimitsShadowGive MeLongingFinalsTerrorFlamesKeep GoingRecallsSeriousnessFlareFlare Up
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything the darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shivering blaze of every step up. So many live on and want nothing And are raised to the rank of prince By the slippery ease of their light judgments But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst. You love most of all those who need you as they need a crowbar or a hoe. You have not grown old, and it is not too late To dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.”

WantNeedsGivingFeelsLightFacesFallSecretStepsDarknessJudgmentLateInfiniteRaisedDepthEaseToo LateThirstNeed YouWhat You LoveEvery StepStep UpSlipperyHoe
Book:Selected poems
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“And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers-perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.”

IfsWayWantLifeGivingActionTimeAsksQualityKnowledgeKnowingDoubtBuildingInspirational LifeLife PhilosophyBecomingDemandGiving UpFindingsSelf ImprovementTrainingArgumentCriticismTestsIntelligentTrainWorkersUglyProofPersistenceNovelistsProtestSelf ControlEmbarrassedSelf DisciplineImprovingDayNot Giving UpPersistentSpoilDestroyersGood QualityInsistingBewilderedGiving Up Is Not An OptionAttentiveness
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“There would have to be bread, some rich, whole-grain bread and zwieback, and perhaps on a long, narrow dish some pale Westphalian ham laced with strips of white fat like an evening sky with bands of clouds. There would be some tea ready to be drunk, yellowish golden tea in glasses with silver saucers, giving off a faint fragrance.”

GivingLongWholeWould BeWhiteRichSkyReadyBandCloudsGlassesBreadFatsGoldenDrunkEveningTeaSilverGrainPaleDishesFragranceHamWhole GrainsEvening Sky
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetiness into the heavenly wine.”

GivingTwoBigsLastsLordWindSummerShadowWinePressesLaysFruitCommandFulfillmentHeavenlyOctoberMeadowsSundials
Book:Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
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“You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing That is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks As it divides and rejoins behind you. The trees you planted in childhood have grown Too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.”

GivingFeelsBehindsAirTreeChildhoodHeavyBreathingDividesCheeksBrushesBehind You
Book:In Praise of Mortality: Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus
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