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
grasp power shape
I feel it now...there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world. I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it.
powerful heart circles
His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly. An image enters in, rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.
powerful law depth
Do not be bewildered by the surfaces: in the depths all becomes law.
real power giving
I feel it now: there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it. All becoming has need me..
advice asked classes deal difficult life
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult
beautiful friends-or-friendship glad helps realize
I'm so glad you're here. . .it helps me realize how beautiful my world is.
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.
difficult good reason solitude
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
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.
convert intention principle remain
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
among assume beyond comfort far life lives quiet remains sadness seeks simple untroubled words
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.
above billion blazing high presence spinning stars
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.
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.