I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.
Meaning of the quote
The highest way for two people to be close is for each person to respect the other's need for private time and space. This means allowing your friend or partner to have time alone without feeling pressured to always be together. By giving each other this freedom, you can have a deeper, more meaningful connection.
About Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke was an acclaimed Austrian poet and novelist known for his expressive and mystical writings in German. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and is best known for his poetry collections Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, as well as his semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
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More quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke
I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
More belongs to marriage than four legs in a bed.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
There are quantities of human faces, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
One had to take some action against fear when once it laid hold of one.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Who has not sat before his own heart’s curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Truly to sing, that is a different breath.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
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.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
There may be good, but there are no pleasant marriages.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Love is like the measles. The older you get it, the worse the attack.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
The only journey is the one within.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.
Austrian poet and writer (1875-1926)