Rainer Maria Rilke on a porous ego

November 23, 2025 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

(Rilke in 1900)

“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

~ Rilke

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, known as Rainer Maria Rilke (December 4, 1875 – December 29, 1926), was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language. Wikipedia

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“Give me some TRUTH!”
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“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.”
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— G.K. Chesterton

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only at night.”
— Edgar Allan Poe

“Give thanks to unknown blessings already on their way.”
— Native American proverb at cafe in San Francisco

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
–e.e. cummings

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Bathtub Bulletin

Rainer Maria Rilke on a porous ego

“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

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Consciousness, spirituality, biography, sexuality, androgyny, futurism, space, the arts, science, astrology, democracy, humor, books, movies and more