What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes From Rainer Maria Rilke Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confidence in the storms of spring without fear that after them may come no summer Rainer Maria Rilke summerspringmean I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie. Rainer Maria Rilke secretivewantlying Joy is a marvelous increasing of what exists, a pure addition out of nothingness. Rainer Maria Rilke marvelouspurejoy You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. ... But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you [that is, passed through you]. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. Rainer Maria Rilke sadnessimportantlife We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors. Rainer Maria Rilke eyebrowsmirrorsreal Only the individual who is solitary is like a thing placed under profound laws, and when he goes out into the morning that is just beginning, or looks out into the evening that is full of happening, and if he feels what is going on there, then all status drops from him as from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of sheer life. Rainer Maria Rilke lawmorningmen What is happening on your innermost self is worthy of your entire love. Rainer Maria Rilke happeningsworthyself A birdsong can even, for a moment, make the whole world into a sky within us, because we feel that the bird does not distinguish between its heart and the world's. Rainer Maria Rilke skyheartbird In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Rainer Maria Rilke adversitylifehands When we are only victorious over small things, it leaves us feeling small. Rainer Maria Rilke small-thingsfeelings One moment your life is a stone in you, and the next moment a star! Rainer Maria Rilke nextstarsstones I think of you often, dear, and with such concentrated wishes that it really must help you in some way. Rainer Maria Rilke wishwaythinking It is true that these mysteries are dreadful, and people have always drawn away from them. But where can we find anything sweet and glorious that would never wear this mask, the mask of the dreadful? Whoever does not, sometimes or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life, can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power of our existence; can only walk on its edge, and one day, when the judgment is given, will have been neither alive nor dead. Rainer Maria Rilke sweetgivingpeople This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess of that precious nourishing love from which flowers and children have their strength and which could help all human beings if they would take it without doubting. Rainer Maria Rilke flowerlovechildren Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation. When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are rarely the center of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve. Rainer Maria Rilke curvescirclesletting-go Our heart always transcends us. Rainer Maria Rilke heart Be out of sync with your times for just one day, and you will see how much eternity you contain within you. Rainer Maria Rilke syncone-dayeternity Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say. Rainer Maria Rilke destinywishlife How I will cherish you then, you grief-torn nights! Had I only received you, inconsolable sisters, on more abject knees, only buried myself with more abandon in your loosened hair. How we waste our afflictions! We study them, stare out beyond them into bleak continuance, hoping to glimpse some end. Whereas they're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year -- ; not only a season --: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode. Rainer Maria Rilke griefdarknight For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so, because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible. Rainer Maria Rilke endureableangel
