Quotessence
Home / Authors / Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsSolitudeLoveLifeWorldPoetryKnowsWayPeopleHeartDifficultWantStillsGivingArtInspirationalChildhoodFeelsGriefLong

Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the pure feeling with which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the splendor of all knowledge...the individual...can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery---which the world is filled with...”

LoveInspirationalPleasure
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
Create image

“Bisognerebbe saper attendere, raccogliere, per una vita intera e possibilmente lunga, senso e dolcezza, e poi, proprio alla fine, si potrebbero forse scrivere dieci righe valide. Perché i versi non sono, come crede la gente, sentimenti (che si acquistano precocemente), sono esperienze. Per scrivere un verso bisogna vedere molte città, uomini e cose, bisogna conoscere gli animali, bisogna capire il volo degli uccelli e comprendere il gesto con cui i piccoli fiori si aprono al mattino. Bisogna saper ripensare a itinerari in regioni sconosciute, a incontri inaspettati e congedi previsti da tempo, a giorni dell'infanzia ancora indecifrati, ai genitori che eravamo costretti a ferire quando portavano una gioia e non la comprendevamo (era una gioia per qualcun altro), a malattie infantili che cominciavano in modo così strano con tante profonde e grevi trasformazioni, a giorni in stanze silenziose e raccolte e a mattine sul mare, al mare sopratutto, a mari, a notti di viaggio che passavano con un alto fruscio e volavano assieme alle stelle - e ancora non è sufficiente poter pensare a tutto questo. Bisogna avere ricordi di molte notti d'amore, nessuna uguale all'altra, di grida di partorienti e di lievi, bianche puerpere addormentate che si rimarginano. Ma bisogna anche essere stati accanto ad agonizzanti, bisogna essere rimasti vicino ai morti nella stanza con la finestra aperta e i rumori intermittenti. E non basta ancora avere ricordi. Bisogna saperli dimenticare, quando sono troppi, e avere la grande pazienza di attendere che ritornino. Perché i ricordi in sé ancora non sono. Solo quando diventano sangue in noi, sguardo e gesto, anonimi e non più distinguibili da noi stessi, soltanto allora può accadere che in un momento eccezionale si levi dal loro centro e sgorghi la prima parola di un verso.”

InspirationalWritingPoetryPatiencePoetry Of Life
Book:The notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Create image

“And even if you were in some prison the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? turn your attention thither.try to raise the submerged sensations of the ample past; your personality will grow more firm, your solitude will widen and will become a dusky dwelling past which the noise of others goes by far away. And if out of this turning inward, out of this absorption into your own world verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. nor will you try to interest magazines in your poems; for you will see in them your fond natural possessions, a fragment and a voice of your life.”

InspirationalWritingPoetrySolitude
Book:Letters to a Young Poet
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

LoveLifeInspirationalTryingHeartBookAblePoetryGivenAnswersRoomsWrittenPatiencePatientTongueLockedKnow YourselfBe PatientNoticingBeing SingleUnanswered QuestionsSingle Girl
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
Create image

“a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude”

InspirationalReadingMarriageSolitudeWeddingGuardianVowToastsAnniversaryGreatest LoveLove And MarriageReceptionMarriage LifePositive MarriageGood MarriageMarriage LoveWedding MarriageWedding ToastWedding SpeechWeddings And MarriageWedding ReceptionHealthy MarriageMarriage SpeechInspirational WeddingMarriage AnniversaryMarriage Toast
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
Create image