Rilke Answers Quotes & Sayings

Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient with all that is uncertain in your heart ... do not search for answers, which will not be given: you will not be able to live them, and its importat to live everything. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. — Rainer Maria Rilke

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I think about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke who said that it's the questions that move us, not the answers. As a writer, I believe that it's our task, our responsibility, to hold the mirror up to social injustices that we see and to create a prayer of beauty. The questions serve us in that capacity. — Terry Tempest Williams

Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write [create]? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Do not search now for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient with all that is unsolved in your life. Learn to love the questions themselves, until some distant day, without your knowing, you will have lived into the answers. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Letter to a Young Poet, 1903 — Rainer Maria Rilke

You are so young, you have not even begun, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart and to try to cherish the questions themselves, like closed rooms and like books written in a very strange tongue. Do not search now for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, one distant day live right into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Go into yourself. Dig into yourself for a deep answer — Rainer Maria Rilke

I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart, And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given, For you would not be able to live them, And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now, And perhaps, without knowing it, You will live along some distant day Into the answers. Rainer Rilke — Paul J. Donoghue

Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Love the questions themselves ... Live the questions now and have confidence that someday far into the future, [I will live my] way into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke