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Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

Poet

German poet known for his profound poetry and epistolary works. Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry style is unique, often exploring themes such as loneliness, love, and religious faith.

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All Ifs Solitude Love Life World Poetry Knows Way People Heart Difficult Want Stills Giving Art Inspirational Childhood Feels Grief Long

Famous Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

“Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.”

Way Want Doe Art Real Three Literature Existence Half Practice Knowing Example Criticism Deny Profession Neighbor Journalism Artistic Quarters Unreal Real Ones

Book:Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

“Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through.”

Way States Artist Turns Creative Grace Casts Refusal Creative Art Creative Artists

Book:Letters on Cézanne

Source: Letters on Cézanne

“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.”

People Way Helping Grows Easy Difficult Sides Clear Alive Cost Solutions Opposition Conventions

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“Love the questions themselves...Live the questions now and have confidence that someday far into the future, [I will live my] way into the answer.”

Way Answers My Way Someday Have Confidence

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

Ifs Way Mind Mean Whole Helping Break Bears Sick Reactions Aliens Get Better Sickness Organisms Unhealthy Break Out It Gets Better

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“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.”

People Ifs Way May Soul Ends Feelings Dream Moving Effort Flower Bears Garden Eternity Embrace Fruit Deeds Conclusion Manage Strings Infirmity Splendour Embrace Life Great Garden

Book:Diaries of a Young Poet

Source: Diaries of a Young Poet

“Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.”

Way Art Ends Artist Results Gone Danger Art Is

Book:Letters on Cézanne

Source: Letters on Cézanne

“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.”

Way Feels Firsts Doe Earth Sound Darkness Sea Taste Depth Smell Graves Bitter Borders Autumn Touching Inferiors Ripe Containing Fall Autumn Fall Season Autumn Days

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”

Ifs Way Art Creative Judging Art Is Works Of Art

Book:Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

“But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.”

World Way Needs Strange Calling Fleeting Fleeting World

Book:The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition

Source: The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition

“Why should you want to give up a child's wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not-understanding is, after all, a way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are a participation in precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from.”

Way Want Giving Should Mean Children Understanding Wise Giving Up Participation Scorn Defensiveness

Book:Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

“Isn't it time that these most ancient sorrows of ours grew fruitful? Time that we tenderly loosed ourselves from the loved one, and, unsteadily, survived: the way the arrow, suddenly all vector, survives the string to be more than itself. For abiding is nowhere.”

Way Grew Sorrow Ancient Strings Loved Ones Survived Arrows Abiding Vectors

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“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.”

Knows Way Trying Littles Reason Grows Difficult Clear Alive Cost Solitude Certainty Opposition Abandon Solitary

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“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.”

Ifs Way Feels Heart I Can Hands Eye Names Brain Break Fire Seeing Blood Feet Arms Goes On My Heart Beats Mouths Ears Hearing My Way Swear Seals Break Off

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”

Way May Children Nature Integrity Flow Rivers Holding Back

Book:Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“She followed slowly, taking a long time, As though there were some obstacles in the way; And yet: as though, once it was overcome, She would be beyond all walking, and would fly.”

Way Long Would Be Walking Long Time Overcoming Obstacles

Book:The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin

Source: The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin

“We make our way through Everything like thread passing through fabric, giving shape to images that we ourselves do not know.”

Knows Way Giving Shapes Passing Passings Thread Fabric Passing Through

Book:Letters on Life: New Prose Translations

Source: Letters on Life: New Prose Translations

“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.”