I think of you often, dear, and with such concentrated wishes that it really must help you in some way. Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes From Rainer Maria Rilke 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. Rainer Maria Rilke being-alone solitude reason Now I come to you full of future. And from habit we begin to live our past. Rainer Maria Rilke future habit past Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his reflective processes, and incomprehensibly to himself, all his progress should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of. Rainer Maria Rilke creativity taken beautiful She who reconciles the ill-matched threads Of her life, and weaves them gratefully Into a single cloth – It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall And clears it for a different celebration. Rainer Maria Rilke thread celebration different Speaking of August Rodin: He raised his world above us in an immense arc, and made it a part of nature. Rainer Maria Rilke rodin august world Love the questions themselves...Live the questions now and have confidence that someday far into the future, [I will live my] way into the answer. Rainer Maria Rilke someday answers way Swells, Marina? we ocean, depths, Marina? we sky! Rainer Maria Rilke ocean depth sky Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you. Rainer Maria Rilke sorrow grief suffering That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other. Rainer Maria Rilke lonely safe two That is the principal thing-not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-the-mood, but always forcibly to convert it all into things. Rainer Maria Rilke intention mood dream 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. Rainer Maria Rilke alive doe thinking If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. So like children, we begin again... to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly. (from the poem "How Sure Gravity's Law") Rainer Maria Rilke confused lonely children If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. Rainer Maria Rilke sick mind mean There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course. Rainer Maria Rilke littles birthday men Nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters. Rainer Maria Rilke challenges matter He 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 Rilke humble dog thinking ... be indulgent toward those who ... are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Rainer Maria Rilke solitude Only those sadnesses are dangerous and bad which one carries about among people in order to drown them out. Rainer Maria Rilke sadness order people And we, spectators always, everywhere, looking at, never out of, everything! It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses. We re-arrange it, and collapse ourselves. Who's turned us round like this, so that we always, do what we may, retain the attitude of someone who's departing? Just as he, on the last hill, that shows him all his valley for the last time, will turn and stop and linger, we live our lives, for ever taking leave. Rainer Maria Rilke valleys may attitude No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger. Rainer Maria Rilke danger made art
