Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself. Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke More Quotes From Rainer Maria Rilke Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning. Rainer Maria Rilke floweranimalmorning Often a star was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you out of the distant path, or as you walked under an open window, a violin yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission. Rainer Maria Rilke violinstarswaiting Whoever now makes himself bigger, freer and more human in his own existence, is doing his part toward peace, — as yet it must be worked at in an inward direction, not until a few have it all big and ready within them can it let itself be brought into the world. Rainer Maria Rilke existencehumans I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. Rainer Maria Rilke circlescommunitylife Thus we live, forever taking leave. Rainer Maria Rilke dyingspiritualforever We wasters of sorrows! How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them, trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else than our winter foliage, our sombre evergreen, one of the seasons of our interior year. Rainer Maria Rilke sorrowwinteryears 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. Rainer Maria Rilke realpowergiving Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. Rainer Maria Rilke ironycynicismmoments Read as little as possible of literary criticism - such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word-games, in which one view wins today, and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Rainer Maria Rilke clevermeanart Fame is finally only the sum total of all the misunderstanding that can gather around a new name. Rainer Maria Rilke misunderstandingnamesfame To have a childhood means to live a thousand lives before the one. Rainer Maria Rilke childhoodthousandmean If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty. Rainer Maria Rilke richespovertyblame A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. Rainer Maria Rilke creativejudgingart Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent. Rainer Maria Rilke perfectjoygiving I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future. Rainer Maria Rilke contemplationdreamreality It is part of the nature of every definitive love that sooner or later it can reach the beloved only in infinity. Rainer Maria Rilke sooner-or-laterbelovedinfinity It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning. Rainer Maria Rilke new-beginningsableviolence But there is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere. Rainer Maria Rilke beauty-everywhere What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Rainer Maria Rilke solitudeneededends The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain. Rainer Maria Rilke hoursablesolitude
