Conversation, which is friendship’s mode of expression, is a superficial digression which gives us nothing worth acquiring. We may talk for a lifetime without doing more than indefinitely repeat the vacuity of a minute.

— Proust

How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing —
each stone, blossom, child —
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we tangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.

— Rilke, The Book of Hours II, 16

Consider whether great changes have not happened deep inside your being in times when you were sad. The only sadnesses that are unhealthy and dangerous are those we carry around in public in order to drown them out. Like illnesses that are treated superficially, they only recede for a while and then break out more severely. Untreated they gather strength inside us and become the rejected, lost, and unlived life that we may die of. If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrows more trustingly than we do our joys. For they are the moments when something new enters us, something unknown. Our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, they take a step back, a stillness arises, and the new thing, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.

— Rilke, Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904
Letters to a Young Poet

Think, dear sir, of the world you carry within you . . . be it remembrance of your own childhood or longing for your own future. Only be attentive to what is arising within you, and prize it above all that you perceive around you. What happens most deeply inside you is worthy of your whole love. Work with that and don’t waste too much time and courage explaining it to other people.

— Rilke, Rome, December 23, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet

I want to utter you. I want to portray you
not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple bark.
There is no image I could invent
that your presence would not eclipse.

— Rilke, From The Book of Hours I, 60

“What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people. . . . If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?”

And now an hour, maybe, has passed. And they are both drunk: Kenny fairly, George very. But George is drunk in a good way, and one that he seldom achieves. He tries to describe to himself what this kind of drunkenness is like. Well — to put it very crudely — it’s like Plato; it’s a dialogue. A dialogue between two people. Yes, but not a Platonic dialogue in the hair-splitting, word-twisting, one-up-to-me sense; not a mock-humble bitching match; not a debate on some dreary set theme. You can talk about anything and change the subject as often as you like. In fact, what really matters is not what you talk about, but the being together in this particular relationship. George can’t imagine having a dialogue of this kind with a woman, because women can only talk in terms of the personal. A man of his own age would do, if there was some sort of polarity; for instance, if he was a Negro. You and your dialogue-partner have to be somehow opposites. Why? Because you have to be symbolic figures — like, in this case, Youth and Age. Why do you have to be symbolic? Because the dialogue is by its nature impersonal. It’s a symbolic encounter. It doesn’t involve either party personally. That’s why, in a dialogue, you can say absolutely anything. Even the closest confidence, the deadliest secret, comes out objectively as a mere metaphor or illustration which could never be used against you.

— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man

I want to ask you, as clearly as I can , to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter or books written in a foreign language. Don’t dig for answers that can’t be given you yet: you cannot live them now. For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer.

— Rilke, Worpswede, July 16, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet

Night, so still,
where things entirely white
and things of red and all colors of the rainbow
are lifted into the one stillness
of one darkness —
bring me as well
to immersion in the Many.

Is my mind too taken with light?
If my face were not visible,
would I still feel separate from other things?

Look at my hands:
Don’t they lie there like tools?
Doesn’t the ring on that finger
look just like itself? Does not the light
lie upon them with such trust —
as if knowing they are the very same
when held in darkness.

— Rilke, Book of Images

“. . . homosexuals, in concealing their preferences, conceal their ‘humanity and natural warmth of heart as well.'”

— quote from New York Times Book Review of new biography of Patricia Highsmith

Is Orpheus of this world? No. The vastness of his nature
is born of both realms.
If you know how the willow is shaped underground,
you can see it more clearly above.

We are told not to leave food
on the table overnight: it draws the dead.
But Orpheus, the conjuring one,
mixes death into all our seeing,

mixes it with everything.
The wafting of smoke and incense
is as real to him as the most solid thing.

Nothing can sully what he beholds.
He praises the ring, the bracelet, the pitcher,
whether it comes from a bedroom or a grave.

— Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus I, 6

By Professor Kelly

(random order for first 90)

1. Good things, that come of course, far less do please,
   Than those which come by sweet contingencies. — Robert Herrick
2. When in doubt, go home. — Anon
3. There’s more fuss and nonsense about interpreting interpretations than interpreting things. — Montaigne
4. Virtue is insufficient temptation. — G. B. Shaw
5. Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. — Albert Einstein
6. In men this blunder still you find,
   All think their little set mankind. — Hannah Moore
7. Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words, “For my sake the world was created,” and in his left, “I am dust and ashes.” — Hasidic saying
8. Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. — Goethe
9. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. — Napoleon
10. Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. — Italian proverb
11. Woe to him who is alone when he falleth. — Proverbs, 4:10
12. Reality is always more conservative than ideology. — Raymond Aron
13. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. — Seneca
14. You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it. — Charles Buxton
15. Time is the wisest councilor. — Pericles
16. Why should god submit himself to our puny distinction between existence and non-existence? If he’s worthy of the name, god can both be and not be at the same time. — Alfred Kelly
17. Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods. — Albert Einstein
18. What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree? — Logan Pearsall Smith
19. Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also. — Carl Jung
20. We think in generalities, but we live in detail. — Alfred North Whitehead
21. It is not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring. — Spanish proverb
22. We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love. — Sigmund Freud
23. Don’t die until you’re dead. — Anon
24. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. — Proverbs, 16:18
25. Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. — Francis Bacon
26. We are always getting ready to live, but never living. — Emerson
27. It is far easier to know men than to know a man. — La Rochefoucauld
28. A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can. — Montaigne
29. Courage mounteth with occasion. — Shakespeare
30. Most people reason dramatically, not quantitatively. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
31. The higher the ape climbs, the more he shows his rear end. — German proverb
32. One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it. — French proverb
33. With enough “ifs,” we could put Paris in a bottle. — French proverb
34. If there is another world, he lives in bliss;
    If there is none, he made the best of this. — Robert Burns
35. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. — Thoreau
36. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. — Albert Einstein
37. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. — William James
38. You can count for certain on retaining the upper hand in any matter if you do everything without the slightest delay. — Georg von Lichtenberg
39. Clever men are impressed in their differences from their fellows. Wise men are conscious of their resemblance to them. — R. H. Tawney
40. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? — T. S. Eliot
41. Nothing is an unmixed blessing. — Horace
42. Most people sell their souls and live in good conscience on the proceeds. — Logan Pearsall Smith
43. What is to give light must endure the burning. — Viktor E. Frankl
44. God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. — German proverb
45. What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others. — French proverb
46. Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom. — George Iles
47. And all who told it added something new,
    And all who heard it made enlargements too. — Alexander Pope
48. Invention is the mother of necessity. — Thorstein Veblen
49. It is well for the heart to be naïve and the mind not to be. — Anatole France
50. A lot of what appears to be progress is just so much technological rococo. — Bill Grey
51. Happiness is like coke — something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else. — Aldous Huxley
52. Don’t worry about what other people think; they don’t do it very often. — Anon
53. Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call destiny. — John Oliver Hobbes
54. Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
55. One must plow with the horses that he has. — German proverb
56. Honor sinks where commerce long prevails. — Oliver Goldsmith
57. Every word was once a poem. — Emerson
58. Homo homini lupus [Man is a wolf to man]. — Plautus
59. Good and bad men are less than they seem. — Coleridge
60. My way of joking is to tell the truth. — G. B. Shaw
61. Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame. — Antonia S. Byatt
62. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer master of the policy by the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. — Winston Churchill
63. To every thing there is a season,
    A time for every purpose under heaven. — Ecclesiastes, 3:1
64. Be wary of the man who encourages an action in which he himself incurs no risk. — Joaquin Setanti
65. Most apparent mountains turn out to be molehills; a few apparent molehills turn out to be mountains. — Alfred Kelly
66. Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
67. How soon not now becomes never. — Martin Luther
68. Rotten wood cannot be carved. — Chinese proverb
69. Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity. — Albert Einstein
70. He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another. — Aesop
71. The injuries we do and the injuries we suffer are seldom weighed on the same scales. — Aesop
72. Things are seldom what they seem,
    Skim milk masquerades as cream. — W. S. Gilbert
73. It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing someone’s beard. — Georg von Lichtenberg
74. Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. — Thomas Edison
75. God’ll send you the bill. — James Russell Lowell
76. When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. — Eric Hofer
77. Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. — Thomas La Mance
78. That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember. — Thomas Fuller
79. Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools. — Thoreau
80. Examine the contents, not the bottle. — The Talmud
81. Every fact is already a theory. — Goethe
82. … the reasons for doubting being themselves doubtful. — Pierre Bayle
83. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. — Karl Marx
84. How many people become abstract as a way of appearing profound. — Joseph Joubert
85. What good is running if you are not on the right path? — German proverb
86. The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate. — J. B. Priestley
87. A merry heart doeth good like medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones. — Proverbs, 4:10
88. …………………………………………….Love will find its way,
    Through paths where wolves would fear to prey. — Lord Byron
89. Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. — Charles Darwin
90. The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not. — Blaise Pascal

And finally, the top 10 (this time in order, the most important being number 10)

1. That which has been is what will be,
   That which is done is what will be done,
   And there is nothing new under the sun. — Ecclesiastes, I:9
2. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. — Ecclesiastes, I:2
3. Wisdom is better than rubies. — Proverbs, 8:11
4. After all is said and done, more will have been said than done. — Anon
5. The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
   Chastis’d by sabler tints of woe. — Thomas Gray
6. Love to faults is always blind,
   Always is to joy inclined,
   Lawless, winged and unconfined,
   And breaks all chains from every mind. — William Blake
7. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. — Shakespeare
8. The emperor has no clothes. — Hans Christian Anderson
9. Things are uncertain, and the more we get,
   The more on icy pavements we are set. — Robert Herrick
10. Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying;
    And this same flower that smiles today,
    Tomorrow will be dying. — Robert Herrick

You, darkness, of whom I am born —

I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations — just as they are.

— Rilke, From The Book of Hours I, 11

Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what’s called at home.

But now isn’t simply now. Now is a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until — later or sooner — perhaps — no, not perhaps — quite certainly: it will come.

Fear tweaks the vagus nerve. A sickish shrinking from what waits, somewhere out there, dead ahead.

But meanwhile the cortex, that grim disciplinarian, has taken its place at the central controls and has been testing them, one after another: the legs stretch, the lower back is arched, the fingers clench and relax. And now, over the entire intercommunication system, is issued the first general order of the day: UP.

Obediently the body levers itself out of bed — wincing from twinges in the arthritic thumbs and the left knee, mildly nauseated by the pylorous in a state of spasm — and shambles naked into the bathroom, where its bladder is emptied and it is weighed: still a bit over 150 pounds, in spite of all that toiling at the gym! Then to the mirror.

What it sees there isn’t so much a face as the expression of a predicament. Here’s what it has done to itself, here’s the mess it has somehow managed to get itself into during its fifty-eight years; expressed in terms of a dull, harassed stare, a coarsened nose, a mouth dragged down by the corners into a grimace as if at the sourness of its own toxins, cheeks sagging from their anchors of muscle, a throat hanging limp in tiny wrinkled folds. The harassed look is that of a desperately tired swimmer or runner; yet there is no question of stopping. The creature we are watching will struggle on and on until it drops. Not because it is heroic. It can imagine no alternative.

Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face — the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man — all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us — we have died — what is there to be afraid of?

It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I’m afraid of being rushed.

It stares and stares. Its lips part. It starts to breathe through its mouth. Until the cortex orders it impatiently to wash, to shave, to brush its hair. Its nakedness has to be covered. It must be dressed up in clothes because it is going outside, into the world of the other people; and these others must be able to identify it. It’s behavior must be acceptable to them.

Obediently, it washes, shaves, brushes its hair, for it accepts its responsibilities to the others. It is even glad that it has its place among them. It knows what is expected of it.

It knows its name. It is called George.

— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man

“[T]hought only destroys because it broadens. A man’s brain is a bomb,” he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his own skull with violence. “My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man’s brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe.”

— G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday