A Quote by Rainer Maria Rilke

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his reflective processes, and incomprehensibly to himself, all his progress should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of.
There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.
When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to His father; His body He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred; His clothes fell to the soldiers; His mother He left to the care of John; but what should He leave to His poor disciples that had left all for Him? Silver and gold He had none; but He left them that which was infinitely better, His peace.
My treasure chest is filled with gold. Gold . . . gold . . . gold . . . Vagabond's gold and drifter's gold . . . Worthless, priceless, dreamer's gold . . . Gold of the sunset . . . gold of the dawn . . .Gold of the showertrees on my lawn . . . Poet's gold and artist's gold . . . Gold that can not be bought or sold - Gold.
And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.
If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.
A physician should take his fee without letting his left hand know what his right is doing; it should be taken without a thought, without a look, without a move of the facial muscles; the true physician should hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand has been made more precious by the touch of gold
Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because--despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content--these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.
And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously.
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
Forget not that the man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off.
Spectators around the world enjoyed watching Seve, but talking to a lot of the players, he made such an impression on them the way he played, and the way he was such a beautiful, natural talent. His hands on the club. His address position. He had an unbelievable way of telegraphing through his countenance what he was going to do with the ball. It was just like an artist.
You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don't give them up. Don't cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were His before they were yours - long before He entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as He loves them.
A distinguished man should be as particular about his last words as he is about his last breath. He should write them out on a slip of paper and take the judgment of his friends on them. He should never leave such a thing to the last hour of his life, and trust to an intellectual spurt at the last moment to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch into eternity with grandeur.
The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned.
A photographer is a photographer and an artist is an artist. I don't believe in labels or titles. Why should a painter or sculptor who has probably never challenged the rules be an artist just because his title and an art school education automatically make him one.
Every young man should aim at independence and should prepare himself for a vocation; above all, he should so manage his life that the steps of his progress are taken without improper aids; that he calls no one master, that he does not win or deserve the reputation of being a tool of others, and that if called to public service he may assume its duties with the satisfaction of knowing that he is free to rise to the height of his opportunity.
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