Saturday, April 24, 2010

ANOTHER QUOTE

"I would like to beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." —Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

4 comments:

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

This is one of my very favorites Michael. It reminds me of another translation of Mitchell's of Lao Tzu when he says something to the effect of: "do you have the patience to let the mud settle and the water to clear - to let the right answer arise by itself?" And another - can't recall the attribution, where the disciple asks: "Master, what is Truth?" to which the Master replies: "Walk on!"

Elisabeth said...

This reminds me of Keat's notion of negative capability, though put more delicately.

'The concept of Negative Capability is the ability to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects or fit it into closed and rational systems.'

See: http://www.alpheratz.f2s.com/negative-capability.htm

Jamie Rose said...

One of my favorites. I give this out to my acting students.

xo
Jamie

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

We're all dipping into the well Michael. I've known you the better part of two decades and only recently learned of our shared love of certain books and quotes, which are glimmers of light on the vast ocean. They all are getting at and pointing to the same thing. "This thing we speak of cannot be found by seeking...yet only seekers find it." Thanks man, and hope your living a glorious Sunday.