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Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

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Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“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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“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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“People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.”

PeopleWayHelpingGrowsEasyDifficultSidesClearAliveCostSolutionsOppositionConventions
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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“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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“You darkness, that I come from, I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world, for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone, and then no one outside learns of you. But the darkness pulls in everything: shapes and fires, animals and myself, how easily it gathers them! - powers and people - and it is possible a great energy is moving near me. I have faith in nights.”

PeopleWorldLightMovingNightEnergyAnimalDarknessFireLove YouShapesCirclesHave FaithFenceLove You MoreI Love You More
Book:Selected poems
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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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“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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“Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.”

PeopleWorldDifferentMomentsGivenPleasureKnowingSeeingAcceptanceFinePureGloryTiredFruitTongueSpotsSensualBad ThingsSensationsDistractionFullnessExaltedMisuseUnendingStimulantsRallyingSensual Pleasure
Book:Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations
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