Rainer Maria Rilke

"“It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.”"

"“You darkness, that I come from,I love you more than all the firesthat fence in the world,for the fire makesa 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 energyis moving near me. I have faith in nights.”"

"“I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.”"

"“If we surrenderedto earth's intelligencewe could rise up rooted, like trees.”"

"“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.”"

"“I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enoughto make every moment holy. I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enoughjust to lie before you like a thing,shrewd and secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,as it goes toward action;and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,when something is coming near,I want to be with those who know secret thingsor else alone. I want to be a mirror for your whole body,and I never want to be blind, or to be too oldto hold up your heavy and swaying picture. I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,because where I am folded, there I am a lie.and I want my grasp of things to betrue before you. I want to describe myselflike a painting that I looked atclosely for a long time,like a saying that I finally understood,like the pitcher I use every day,like the face of my mother,like a shipthat carried methrough the wildest storm of all.”"

"“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”"

"“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”"

"“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 youwith 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.”"

"“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.”"

"“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. ”"

"“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation... Love is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”"

"The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens."

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty."

"A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship."

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."

"More belongs to marriage than four legs in a bed."

"And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been."

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."