Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea that I'm an artist.

All good work requires self-revelation.

Knowing yourself has to always come from within. The outside can inspire or guide you, but knowing has to come from within you.

My personality doesn't interest me.

You pursue what you love, and if you find beauty or truth, you go with that.

If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it?

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

I want to get within myself and write. I really, really want to write.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves.

There's something very touching to me about someone almost communicating to themselves in some way - trying to come to some deeper understanding of yourself and having compassion for yourself.

In every person, you have a world of personalities and souls, a world of perspectives that you can share. You can get into anyone's shoes. You've got to be willing to stare at the ugliest part of yourself and deal with it.

I think every writer is in search of the truth. We are trying to psychoanalyze ourselves.

'Shortcomings' was me figuring out who I am.

I've always found myself to be most free and creatively open when I'm on my own.

I see the ups and downs. I see the mistakes I've made. I see a funny person. I see a serious person. I see a diamond. I see the good times. I see the bad times. And I see knowledge of self. I see knowledge of self. I know who I am. When I look in the mirror, I see me.

It is not only useless, it is harmful, to believe in oneself until one truly knows oneself. And to know oneself means to accept our moments of insanity, of eccentricity, of childishness and blindness.

The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.

When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity.

To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found.

Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.

Know thyself, for through thyself only thou canst know God.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.

As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found- in himself.