Rainer Maria Rilke Alive Quotations

For it is not simply because of mere sluggishness alone that human relationships repeat themselves from case to case in such unspeakable monotonous and unrefreshed ways; there is also a certain shyness for unforseeable experiences generally because one doesn't feel up for them. But only for the one that is on the lookout for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatic, will the relationship to another become something alive and to speak to the whole potential of one's existence.

only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.

Most people have turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it.

My blood is alive with many voices telling me I am made of longing.

People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.

And these things that keep alive on departure know that you praise them; transient, they look to us, the most transient, to be their rescue. They want us to change them completely, in our invisible hearts, into -- O endlessly -- us! Whoever, finally, we may be.

It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.