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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“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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“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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“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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“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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“It is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.”

KnowsWayTryingLittlesReasonGrowsDifficultClearAliveCostSolitudeCertaintyOppositionAbandonSolitary
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“I don’t want to stand before you like a thing, shrewd, secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, as it goes toward action. And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times, when something is coming near, I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. I want to unfold. I don’t want to be folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.”

KnowsWantSometimesActionMovingLyingMy OwnSecretSilentSecretive
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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“You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house - , and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon, - you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening.”

KnowsStillsCountrySometimesHouseStreetsBirdGardenWindowMirrorsLongingYesterdayEveningBelovedShopsDizzyYour PresencePensiveCountry Houses
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“I am so afraid of people's words.They describe so distinctly everything: And this they call dog and that they call house, here the start and there the end. I worry about their mockery with words, they know everything, what will be, what was; no mountain is still miraculous; and their house and yard lead right up to God. I want to warn and object: Let the things be! I enjoy listening to the sound they are making. But you always touch: and they hush and stand still. That's how you kill.”

PeopleKnowsWantStillsEndsHouseEnjoySoundWorryDogObjectsListeningMountainYardsMiraculousMockeryHush
Book:Pictures of God: Rilke's Religious Poetry Including
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“Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divinings, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.”

KnowsWayLittlesMomentsFeelingsJoyGrowsGreaterSadnessSilentEndureShyMidstSomething NewStillnessMutePerplexity
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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“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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