You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing _x000D_ That is more than your own. _x000D_ Let it brush your cheeks _x000D_ As it divides and rejoins behind you. _x000D_ _x000D_ The trees you planted in childhood have grown _x000D_ Too heavy. You cannot bring them along. _x000D_ Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.
Interpretation
Embrace the transient nature of life and let go of past burdens to fully experience the present.
Rainer Maria Rilke's quote encourages individuals to be open to their feelings and the ephemeral beauty of life. It suggests that the weight of our childhood memories and past experiences can become burdensome, and to truly live and breathe freely, we must release ourselves from these encumbrances, allowing ourselves to be part of the ever-changing flow of life.
In practice
This quote can be used during a graduation speech to encourage graduates to embrace the future.
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
Naught can deform the human race Like to the armor's iron brace.
Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.
The nationalist has a broad hatred and a narrow love.
Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.
Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division.
In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave.
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