Rainer Maria Rilke
“I live my life in circles that grow wide and endlessly unroll.”
The Book of Hours, 1905 · tr. Jessie Lemont, 1918
Documented source
Source
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours (Das Stunden-Buch) (1905)
Translator
Jessie Lemont, 1918 (public domain) — not Macy/Barrows
Wording
Exact per Lemont
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About this line
The Book of Hours is a cycle of prayer-poems in the voice of a monk, written after Rilke’s travels in Russia; this line opens it. The image is expansion, not loss — a life that grows outward rather than closing in, not toward a destination, simply onward.
Why we carry this line
A life that widens instead of narrows — I needed that picture. Not a straight line to somewhere, a spiral going out. And this quote comprises one of my favorite designs. True confessions: I own the shirt, phone case and tumbler.
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