| Author Quoted | Rainer Maria Rilke |
| Title Quoted | Duino Elegies / translated into English by James Blair Leishman and Stephen Spender |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1966/02/03 |
| Imprint | New York : W.W.Norton & Company. 1963 |
| Quotation | Distraction - from the illusory expectation of some fulfillment, which in the end is only a human loneliness. Warst du nicht immer noch von Erwartung zerstreut, als kündigte alles [eine] Geliebte dir an? [Were you not forever distracted by expectation, as if everything were announcing to you some (coming) beloved?] Distracted that is from the solemn Auftrag - [a commission entrusted to one by another] the [indecipherable] suddenly "giving itself" etc. Rilke (1st [Duino] Elegy) |
| Journal | Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 357 |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
|