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Who has not sat nervously before the stage curtain of his heart? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Poem

Who has not sat nervously before the stage curtain of his heart?

In the original German

Wer sass nicht bang vor seines Herzen Vorhang?

Rainer Maria Rilke
1923
★ 3.6
Other tags relating to this quote
Topic
IntrospectionVulnerabilityFear
Medium
Poem
Time
1923
Person
Rainer Maria Rilke
Provenance
Current citation
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies, translated by David Young. W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.
Original citation
Rilke, Rainer Maria. "Die vierte Elegie [Fourth Elegy]." Duineser Elegien [Duino Elegies]. Insel-Verlag, 1923.

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Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

Louise Erdrich
The Painted Drum · 2005
Another quote aboutTopic·Vulnerability

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