What Rainer Maria Rilke Actually Said About Action
All 3 Rainer Maria Rilke passages on action, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Rainer Maria Rilke returns to action three times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. German-language poet of inwardness. The Duino Elegies and Letters to a Young Poet remain touchstones for anyone learning to listen to their own life.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is of its period, but the question underneath is not: what is action for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Rainer Maria Rilke passage on action
“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”
“When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk on the table: it attracts the dead.”
“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Rainer Maria Rilke is not offering three opinions about action; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk on the table: it attracts the dead” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
Rainer Maria Rilke applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to Rainer Maria Rilke.
Your workplace rewards a version of you that feels false.
Argued as deliberate withdrawal: You are choosing long-term wholeness over short-term fit. The danger is making escape do the work that courage should do.
More money would help, but the chase is changing your days.
Argued as deliberate economy: You are widening the ledger to include the goods money can serve but not replace. The danger is becoming vague about real obligations.
Work through these yourself
- Your workplace rewards a version of you that feels false. — argued from deliberate withdrawal and several competing positions
- More money would help, but the chase is changing your days. — argued from deliberate economy and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Plato, Seneca, Mahatma Gandhi and Lao Tzu all address action too, and they do not converge. Reading Rainer Maria Rilke alone gives you a coherent position; reading Rainer Maria Rilke against Plato shows you what the position is actually choosing against.