Rainer Maria Rilke quotes

Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austrian poet and novelist renowned for his deeply lyrical and philosophical writing. His works, such as the "Duino Elegies" and "Sonnets to Orpheus", explore themes of existence, love, and the passage of time. He is considered one of the most influential figures in early modernist literature. Here are 206 of his quotes:

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.

Rainer Maria Rilke

All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Surely 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 Rilke

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

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.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Everything 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 Rilke

Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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

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

The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.

Rainer Maria Rilke

All 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 Rilke

Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

Rainer Maria Rilke

There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Painting is something that takes place among the colors, and one has to leave them alone completely, so that they can settle the matter among themselves. Their intercourse this is the whole of painting. Whoever meddles, arranges, injects his human deliberation, his wit, his advocacy, his intellectual agility in any way, is already disturbing and clouding their activity.

Rainer Maria Rilke