Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes That was the deep uncanny mine of souls.Like veins of silver ore, they silentlymoved through its massive darkness. Blood welled upamong the roots, on its way to the world of men,and in the dark it looked as hard as stone.Nothing else was red. There were cliffs there,and forests made of mist. There… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
There are possibilities for me, certainly, but under what stone do they lie? — Franz Kafka, Diaries of Franz Kafka. (Schocken October 30, 1988) Originally published 1949.
You don’t know nights of love? Nopetals of soft words float on your blood?No secret places on your bodythrob with memories, like eyes? — Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Paris, Winter 1913-14.,” Uncollected Poems, translation by Edward Snow. (North Point Press; 1st North Point Pbk. Ed., Bilingual Ed edition April 11, 1997)
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, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1910-1926. (W. W. Norton & Company February 17, 1969)
That for which we find words, is something already dead in our hearts. — Friedrich Nietzsche
You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering that you could have avoided. — Franz Kafka, Aphorisms (1918)
… seek [that] which your own everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some sort of beauty–describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity, and use, to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, the objects of your memory. — Rainer Maria… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
One eye sees, the other feels. — Paul Kleen
You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything the darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shivering blaze of every step up. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from “[You see, I want a lot],” Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. Translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy. (Riverhead Books; Eighth… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
I feel, almost physically, the current of time slowing down in the gravitational field of oblivion. It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as… Continue reading W.G. Sebald
