Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke—better known as Rainer Maria Rilke—was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical". His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes haunting images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief,...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 December 1875
CountryGermany
A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But in you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult
I'm so glad you're here. . .it helps me realize how beautiful my world is.
Who if I cried out, would hear me among the angel's hierarchies?and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:I would be consumed in that overwhelming existenceFor beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are still just able to endure.and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house, which you know so well. Enormous space is near.
It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it
When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it, for though I may have had him less than they did, there was no one blocking the way between him and me, and I could reach his heart easily. It is up to him, after all, to have us, our part consists of almost solely in letting him grasp us.
That is the principle thing - not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-the-mood, but always forcibly to convert it into all things
Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words.
For it is not simply because of mere sluggishness alone that human relationships repeat themselves from case to case in such unspeakable monotonous and unrefreshed ways; there is also a certain shyness for unforseeable experiences generally because one doesn't feel up for them. But only for the one that is on the lookout for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatic, will the relationship to another become something alive and to speak to the whole potential of one's existence.
For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences. And whoever wants to have a deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey.
...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.
These soft nights hold me like themselves aloft and I lie without a lover.
and I circle ten thousand years long; And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song