Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926 • Bohemian-Austrian
Perennial Philosophy
One of the most significant poets in the German language. His Letters to a Young Poet offers profound guidance on creativity and life.
Key Works
- Letters to a Young Poet
- Duino Elegies
- Sonnets to Orpheus
110
quotes in library
Quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke
110 quotes“You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything.”
longingBook of Hours
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”
patienceLetters to a Young Poet
“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
patienceLetters to a Young Poet
“You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.”
creativityLetters to a Young Poet
“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude.”
loveLetters to a Young Poet
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
loveLetters to a Young Poet
“The only journey is the one within.”
interiorityLetters to a Young Poet
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.”
courageLetters to a Young Poet
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
opennessBook of Hours
“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.”
patienceLetters to a Young Poet
“Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered.”
mysteryLetters to a Young Poet
“Solitude is essentially something that requires of one only that one is alone with one's heart.”
solitudeLetters to a Young Poet
“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing.”
trustLetters to a Young Poet
“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart.”
vocationLetters to a Young Poet
“Confess to yourself in the deepest hour of the night whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”
vocationLetters to a Young Poet
“A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.”
creativityLetters to a Young Poet
“In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again.”
creativityLetters to a Young Poet
“Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening, and wander on the boulevards.”
solitudeAutumn Day
“To the rushing water, speak: I am.”
presenceSonnets to Orpheus
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