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Lou Andreas-Salomé Quotes
1861–1937 Germany
Lou Andreas-Salomé (born either Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé or Lioulia von Salomé; 12 February 1861 – 5 February 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and a well-traveled author, narrator, and essayist from a Russian-German family. Her diverse intellectual interests led to friendships with a broad array of distinguished thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Paul Rée, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Germany Authors Essayists Novelists Poets Also known as: Lou andreas-salome
Random Lou Andreas-Salomé quote
30 quotes
She has grasped that the peaks of wonder in life do not appear as readily as the fairies who awaken Sleeping Beauty; in life peaks must be conquered. That insight she is willing to put to the test . . .
This undeniably made for whimsical architecture, but it gave the house an impression of grace and lightness -- almost as if it were just resting there.
Human life -- ah! life in general -- is poetry. Unconscious of ourselves, we live it -- day by day and piece by piece -- but in its inviolable wholeness it lives, it composes, us. Far from the old phrase: "turn your life into a work of art"; we are not our art work.
"Don't you think that a great yearning is like the birds' heading south -- a sign that somewhere life is in bloom?" -- Georg ("A Death"), p. 173
For us it is not an ascetic kind of life or a retreat behind a desk. How could it be -- when it now enables us to join the battle for our freedom and our rights and to enter into the fullness of life?
And that, finally is the message of this poetry: that we are surrounded, ringed by things of mute presence that are being rescued, redeemed into existence for us only thus, and yet it is these things alone by which we live.
Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters (Briefwechsel, ed. Ernst Pfeiffer) (1952)
Perhaps life's earnestness might often come to destroy the lovers' play, as it had today, perhaps the little song of love might often die out unheard amid the painful, confused tones that assail his heart [as a physician], as it had today.
You also write: you had always thought that such complete devotion to purely intellectual goals was only meant to be a "transition" for me. What do you mean by "transition"? If other goals stand behind it, for which I must give up the most glorious and difficult thing on Earth, namely freedom, then I want to stay in this transition, because I won't give that up.
I cannot think of any personal fate which could have cost me anything like such anguish. And I don't really believe that after this we shall ever be able to be really happy again. (p. 20)
Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salomé Letters (Briefwechsel, ed. Ernst Pfeiffer) (1980)
I can neither live according to models, nor shall I ever be able to provide a model for anyone else. On the contrary, what I shall quite certainly do is to shape my own life according to myself, whatever may come of it. In this I have no principle to put forth, but something much more wonderful -- something that is within oneself and is hot with sheer life, and rejoices and wants to come out.
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