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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.”

PeopleIfsTwoLyingPurposeOpportunityPeriodsSolitudeHighestTasksCrowdsIndifferenceIsolationProvidingLove And Friendship
Book:Selected Letters
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“It almost seems as if autumn were the true creator, more creative than the spring, which is too even-toned, more creative when it comes with its will-to-change and shatters the much too ready-made, self-satisfied and really almost bourgeois-complacent image of summer.”

IfsMadeSelfSeemsCreativeReadySummerSpringCreatorSatisfiedAutumnBourgeoisComplacent
Book:Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1902-1926
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“All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn't intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom.”

IfsThinkingFeelingsFacesJoySidesHoursClearBloodChildhoodPureBottomLiftsYour ChildrenJust OneIntoxicationLift You Up
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“And one of the things I find most moving is the way people with infirmities manage to embrace Life, and from the cool flowers by the wayside reach conclusions about the vast splendour of its great gardens. They can, if their souls' strings are finely tuned, arrive with much less effort at the feeling of eternity; for everything we do, they may dream. And precisely where our deeds end, theirs begin to bear fruit.”

PeopleIfsWayMaySoulEndsFeelingsDreamMovingEffortFlowerBearsGardenEternityEmbraceFruitDeedsConclusionManageStringsInfirmitySplendourEmbrace LifeGreat Garden
Book:Diaries of a Young Poet
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“The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,as if orchards were dying high in space.Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."And tonight the heavy earth is fallingaway from all other stars in the loneliness.We're all falling. This hand here is falling.And look at the other one. It's in them all.And yet there is Someone, whose handsinfinitely calm, holding up all this falling.”

IfsLooksHandsEarthFallStarsSpaceDyingLonelinessCalmHeavyTonightLeafsOrchard
Book:Selected poems
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“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”

IfsLoveLifeInspirationalHumansWholeHopeGrowsSidesHuman BeingsLove IsInspiringWonderfulRelationshipSkyLove YouSucceedAnd LoveRelationInfiniteDistanceAcceptedRealizationClosestOur LoveGreat LoveLove Each OtherHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsBeing LovedLove RelationshipFamous LoveGreatest LoveTime LoveLoving OthersHuman LoveInspiring LoveTime And LoveRelationships With OthersClose RelationshipBest Ever LoveFamily RelationshipHappy RelationshipAmazing LoveBeing AcceptedLoving RelationshipsLove And DistanceInspirational RelationshipRelationships And LifePossible LoveGetting To Know Each OtherLove Is AmazingLoving Words
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”

IfsHeartWould BeNightVoiceNatureColorSpringSeasonsUnbelievableAprilSpringtimeBloomingSpring PoemsApril And SpringSpring SeasonSpring TimeMay DayThink SpringSpring InspirationalSpring MayWelcome SpringSpring GardeningSpringtime InspirationalFunny SpringMarch PoemsHappy SpringWhite Flowers
Book:Letters
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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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“So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety - like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in the palm of its hand and will not let you fall.”

IfsHandsLightMovingFaithFallFearRealizingSadnessFrontsAnxietyHappeningsShadowForgottenDearCloudsFrightenedPalms
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you. Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you. And without feet I can make my way to you, without a mouth I can swear your name. Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you with my heart as with a hand. Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat. And if you consume my brain with fire, I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”

IfsWayFeelsHeartI CanHandsEyeNamesBrainBreakFireSeeingBloodFeetArmsGoes OnMy HeartBeatsMouthsEarsHearingMy WaySwearSealsBreak Off
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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“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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“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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“Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.”

IfsWorldFeelsEarthPainMovingNightTurnsSpeakWaterSpaceDarknessMysteryDrinkQuietFlowWineSilentRingsSensesBitterBreathingIntensityBellsTowersBack And ForthRushingCrossroadsRushing Water
Book:In Praise of Mortality: Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus
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“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

IfsYearsMayMeanDoeMatterPainArtistForceTreeTenSummerSpringEternityGratefulLaysSilentPatientStormNot AfraidCountingBeing An ArtistMeasuringSapI Am GratefulRipening
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
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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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“If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.”

IfsMomentsLastsWaitingDifficultForgetRacePrinciplesCourageOur LivesAncientMythAliensIntimateDragonsPrincessTransformedTrusted
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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