For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.
RAINER MARIA RILKEFor one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.
RAINER MARIA RILKEHe reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there’s another dog.
RAINER MARIA RILKEAll emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.
RAINER MARIA RILKEPerhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
RAINER MARIA RILKEEverything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
RAINER MARIA RILKEOnce the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue.
RAINER MARIA RILKEThe only journey is the one within.
RAINER MARIA RILKESurely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.
RAINER MARIA RILKENo great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.
RAINER MARIA RILKEPerhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.
RAINER MARIA RILKEThe deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.
RAINER MARIA RILKEWho has not sat before his own heart’s curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
RAINER MARIA RILKEThere may be good, but there are no pleasant marriages.
RAINER MARIA RILKEThe ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
RAINER MARIA RILKEA person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.
RAINER MARIA RILKEIt is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.
RAINER MARIA RILKE