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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

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Rainer Maria Rilke
Age: 51 †
Born: 1875
Born: December 4
Died: 1926
Died: December 29
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Praha
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
René Maria Cäsar Rilke
Rainer Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Li-erh-kʻo
Rainer Maria Rielke
René Rilke
Rainer Mariyah Rilḳeh
Rainŏ Maria Rilkʻe
Reiner Marie Rilke
Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Rene Rilke
Every
Destroy
Endure
Angel
Disdains
Beginning
Serenely
Terrible
Amazes
Beauty
Disdain
Able
Barely
Nothing
Terror

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The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
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Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
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A billion stars go spinning through the night, / glittering above your head, / But in you is the presence that will be / when all the stars are dead.
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Understand, I'll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks. I'll pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilit meadows with only this one dream: You come too.
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Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future lessens . . . . Superabundant existence wells in my heart.
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Our being is continually undergoing and entering upon changes. ... We must, strictly speaking, at every moment give each other up and let each other go and not hold each other back.
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Strangely, I heard a stranger say, I am with you.
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Nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters.
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We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.
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Never believe fate is more than the condensation of childhood.
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Earth, is not this what you will: in us to rise up invisible? Is it, O Earth, not your dream once to be wholly invisible? Earth! Invisible! What, if not change, is your desperate mission?
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What we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us.
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It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case.
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And when suddenly the god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry, uttered the words: ‘He has turned round’ – she comprehended nothing and said softly: ‘Who?
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The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise.
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Do continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you are taking part in the greatest the more strongly you cultivate in yourself this belief, the more will reality and world go forth from it.
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At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear and again it is the best thing in life that each should have everything in himself his fate, his future, his whole expanse and world.
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I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.
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Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'hierarchies? and even if one of thempressed me against his heart: I would be consumedin that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothingbut the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,and we are so awed because it serenely disdainsto annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.
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. . . denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du musst dein Leben andern. (... for there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.)
Rainer Maria Rilke