My first option is not to run. I am not a runner. I'm a quarterback.
Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.
Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material. . . Don't wait for experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material.
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.
We were happy a hundred years ago. We knew that there were exploiters and exploited, wealthy and poor, and we had a perfect idea of how to get rid of injustice; we would expropriate the owners and turn the wealth over to the common good. We expropriated the owners and we created one of the most monstrous and oppressive social systems in world history. And we keep repeating that in principle everything was all right, only some unfortunate accidents slipped in and slightly spoiled the good idea. Now let us start afresh.
Just as a diamond can only be polished by another diamond, it is only through genuine, all-out engagement with others that people can polish their character, and help each other to reach greater heights.
This is Rilke. I wish I had written it for you.