quote · Legacy record
If your love for […] wants to do something now, then its work and task is this: to catch up with what it has missed. For it has failed to see whither this person has gone, it has failed to accompany her in her broadest development, it has failed to spread itself out over the new distances this person embraces, and it hasn’t ceased looking for her at a certain point in her growth, it wants obstinately to hold fast to a definite beauty beyond which she has passed, instead of persevering, confident of new shared beauties to come.”—from letter to Paula Modersohn-Becker Bremen (February 12, 1902)
If your love for […] wants to do something now, then its work and task is this: to catch up with what it has missed. For it has failed to see whither this person has gone, it has failed to accompany her in her broadest development, it has failed to spread itself out over the new distances this person embraces, and it hasn’t ceased looking for her at a certain point in her growth, it wants obstinately to hold fast to a definite beauty beyond which she has passed, instead of persevering, confident of new shared beauties to come.”—from letter to Paula Modersohn-Becker Bremen (February 12, 1902)
Approximate author period: c. 1900 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1900 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1875 to 1926; Wikidata Q76483, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76483 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 90777; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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