Rainer Maria Rilke

Literature Austrian 1875 – 1926 255 quotes

Greatest lyric poet of the 20th century

Most quoted

"If you are a writer, you must be a writer. If you are a poet, you must be a poet. If you are a human being, you must be a human being. If you are a dog, you must be a dog. If you are a cat, you must be a cat. If you are a mouse, you must be a mouse. If you are a flea, you must be a flea. If you are a bacterium, you must be a bacterium. If you are a virus, you must be a virus. If you are a quark, you must be a quark. If you are a string, you must be a string. If you are a black hole, you must be a black hole. If you are a universe, you must be a universe. If you are nothing, you must be nothing. If you are everything, you must be everything."

— from Letters to a Young Poet

"And you, you who are so young, you must be patient with everything that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

— from Letters to a Young Poet

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

— from Letters to a Young Poet, 1903

All quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke (255)

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

You must change your life.

Archaic Torso of Apollo 1922

And you, who are so new, so young, so full of beginnings, you must be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

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

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

If I am to speak of my childhood, I must speak of the dead.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge 1902

The only thing that will save you is the absolute love of your work.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

The deepest experience of the creator is the experience of the created.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

We are what we are, and we are not what we are not.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

There is no such thing as an old man. There is only a man who has lived a long time.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

Duino Elegies 1922

Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: that alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

We are the bees of the invisible. We are gathering the honey of the visible to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.

Duino Elegies 1922

The great secret of life is to live without fear.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of eternal youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge 1902

Where there is much light, the shadow is deeper.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

Don't be afraid of your sorrow. It is a sign that you are alive.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

We are all children of the earth, and we are all destined to return to it.

Book of Hours 1907

The future must not be feared, for it is not yet here. It is only a dream.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything terrible that is happening to us is something that we must endure so that we may learn to love.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903

You have to live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer.

Letters to a Young Poet 1903