Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes on People (3 Quotes)

Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connection with the earth they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.

But everything that may some day be possible to many the solitary man can now prepare and build with his hands, that err less. Therefore, dear sir, love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you. For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near you is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large rejoice in your growth, in which you naturally can take no one with you, and be kind to those who remain behind, and be sure and calm before them and do not torment them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or joy, which they could not understand. Seek yourself some sort of simple and loyal community with them, which need not necessarily change as you yourself become different and again different love in them life in an unfamiliar form and be considerate of aging people, who fear that being-alone in which you trust.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.