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
hold lie nights soft themselves
These soft nights hold me like themselves aloft and I lie without a lover.
beautiful deepest dragons help helpless lives perhaps princesses terrible waiting wants
...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.
against among beauty beginning consumed cried hear pressed suddenly terror
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.
enormous evening space step whoever
Whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house, which you know so well. Enormous space is near.
beautiful friends-or-friendship glad helps realize
I'm so glad you're here. . .it helps me realize how beautiful my world is.
cute-love far given heart love noticing patience point questions search someday sweet-love themselves unresolved
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point it, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
almost blocking christian consists grasp heart less letting others reach saw solely though toward understand
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.
beside dead open room sat window
One must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises.
aware faces human quantities
I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
song years circles
and I circle ten thousand years long; And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song
reality missing details
No, no, one can imagine nothing in the world, not the least thing. Everything is composed of so many isolated details that are not to be foreseen. In one's imagining one passes over them and hasty as one is doesn't notice that they are missing. But realities are slow and indescribably detailed.
human quantities
There are quantities of human faces, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
alive alone case certain generally human lookout mere monotonous potential relationships repeat shyness simply speak themselves
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.
believe collect deep gather life love richer save wants whoever
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.