And isn't the whole world yours? For how often you set it on fire with your love and saw it blaze and burn up and secretly replaced it with another world while everyone slept. You felt in such complete harmony with God, when every morning you asked him for a new earth, so that all the ones he had made could have their turn. You thought it would be shabby to save them and repair them; you used them up and held out your hands, again and again, for more world. For your love was equal to everything.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the idea that love has the power to transform and renew the world continually.
In this quote, Rainer Maria Rilke conveys the notion that true love allows one to experience profound connection and harmony with the universe. He reflects on how love can create new beginnings and worlds, suggesting that with love, a person can continuously rejuvenate their existence and embrace endless possibilities. The imagery of setting the world on fire symbolizes passion and intensity, while the idea of replacing it with another world evokes the transformative power of love and its ability to inspire renewal and hope.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a wedding ceremony to emphasize the power of love.
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
Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable.
Whatever our religion, we know that if we really want to love, we must first learn to forgive before anything else.
Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time. -Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur
Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you; and I seem not to know my own wishes.
All love is betrayal, in that it flatters life. The loveless man is best armed.
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