More quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."
"But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all. Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, just once. And never again. But to have been this once, completely, even if only once: to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing."
"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."
"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."
"There are no classes in life for beginners: right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult."