Children are still the way you were as a child, sad and happy in just the same way-and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them, among the solitary children.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the enduring nature of childhood emotions and memories in our adult lives.
Rainer Maria Rilke highlights the connection between adults and their childhood selves, suggesting that the emotional experiences we had as children, both joyful and sorrowful, persist within us. By recognizing this bond, we can empathize with children today, understanding their feelings mirror our own past experiences. The idea emphasizes that childhood remains an integral part of who we are, allowing us to connect directly with the innocence and solitude that comes with being young.
In practice
A speaker at a parenting workshop could use this quote to emphasize the importance of understanding a child's emotional world.
Spring has again returned. _x000D_ _x000D_ The Earth is like a child that knows many poems._x000D_ _x000D_ Many, O so many. For the hardship_x000D_ _x000D_ of such long learning she receives the prize._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Strict was her teacher. _x000D_ _x000D_ The white in the old man's beard pleases us._x000D_ _x000D_ Now, what to call green, to call blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!
Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.
The only journey is the one within.
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
When I die I won't go to heaven or hell; there will just be nothingness.
I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together.
Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.
It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?
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