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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
3.75/5
RILKE is clearly a genius, and his letters contain so much of him and his mind. i thought LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET was amazing in some places and boring in others - there is some timeless and beautiful advice in these letters, and there is also a timelessness to his prose. his musings on the nature of sadness and solitude are eternally relevant.
i’m knocking off stars because it did, unfortunately, bore me. maybe i’m not an epistemological kind of person, maybe i’m just not a RILKE person, but i did think these letters did an amazing job at capturing a great poet.
i highly recommend this book to all creatives despite the low rating - you would be floored by how much this writer saw and understood about life.
RILKE is clearly a genius, and his letters contain so much of him and his mind. i thought LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET was amazing in some places and boring in others - there is some timeless and beautiful advice in these letters, and there is also a timelessness to his prose. his musings on the nature of sadness and solitude are eternally relevant.
i’m knocking off stars because it did, unfortunately, bore me. maybe i’m not an epistemological kind of person, maybe i’m just not a RILKE person, but i did think these letters did an amazing job at capturing a great poet.
i highly recommend this book to all creatives despite the low rating - you would be floored by how much this writer saw and understood about life.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
"Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live with 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."
"If your everyday life appears to be unworthy subject matter, do not complain to life. Complain to yourself. Lament that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. For the creative artist, there is no poverty--nothing is insignificant or unimportant. there is beauty here because there is beauty everywhere.”
“A piece of art is good if it is born of necessity. This, its source, is its criterion; there is no other.”
“We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and most important to us.”
“You need to be as patient as someone ill and as optimistic as one recuperating, for perhaps you are both. And more: You are the physician who must watch over yourself. But in the course of every illness there are many days in which the physician can do nothing but wait.”
"If your everyday life appears to be unworthy subject matter, do not complain to life. Complain to yourself. Lament that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. For the creative artist, there is no poverty--nothing is insignificant or unimportant. there is beauty here because there is beauty everywhere.”
“A piece of art is good if it is born of necessity. This, its source, is its criterion; there is no other.”
“We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and most important to us.”
“You need to be as patient as someone ill and as optimistic as one recuperating, for perhaps you are both. And more: You are the physician who must watch over yourself. But in the course of every illness there are many days in which the physician can do nothing but wait.”
white men love to fetishize solitude & individualism sooo bad. was curious to revisit this post college and see if it still annoys me and in fact it still does
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Felt more like a self-help book than an actual self-help book.
And the advices that are provided as well as the words spoken by the writer definitely provides a new introspection on the life that we live, especially for me, as a part of the youth.
And the advices that are provided as well as the words spoken by the writer definitely provides a new introspection on the life that we live, especially for me, as a part of the youth.
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
There is good advice in this small book about loneliness, creativity, being yourself and more.
I loved the inclusion of Kappus' letters to Rilke. It was heartwarming to read his boyish voice, enthusiastic but also somewhat at a loss.
As for Rilke's letters themselves, I could benefit from multiple rereads of various translations. I just want to ingrain his words in my mind.
As for Rilke's letters themselves, I could benefit from multiple rereads of various translations. I just want to ingrain his words in my mind.