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Quote by Rainer Maria Rilke

“Wanting to change, to improve, a person's situation means offering him, for difficulties in which he is practiced and experienced, other difficulties that will find him perhaps even more bewildered.”

Quote by Rainer Maria Rilke

Work

Selected Letters

This book compiles letters written by different individuals, offering insights into their personal thoughts and experiences. more

Author

Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke

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. more

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“May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.”

“Where beats a heart within a human breast, There be Thou present, and Thy power adored! And oh! since all one common race are doom'd To run, and one eternal goal to reach, May Thy prime attribute each bosom warm With tender sympathy and truth; may man To man be link'd to man in fellowship of soul, Till one vast chain of Love embrace the world!”

“Say, care-worn man, Whom Duty chains within the city walls, Amid the toiling crowd, how grateful plays The fresh wind o’er thy sickly brow, when free To tread the springy turf,— to hear the trees Communing with the gales,—to catch the voice Of waters, gushing from their rocky womb, And singing as they wander... Spring-hours will come again, and feelings rise With dewy freshness o’er thy wither’d heart.”

“...but when The Spirit speaks,—or beauty from the sky Descends into my being,—when I hear The storm-hymns of the mighty ocean roll, Or thunder sound,—the champion of the storm!— Then I feel envy for immortal words, The rush of living thought; oh! then I long To dash my feelings into deathless verse, That may administer to unborn time, And tell some lofty soul how I have lived A worshipper of Nature and of Thee!”