What does this quote mean "The Future Stands Still, We Move on With Infinite Space" ?

Hey Mirza. It’s a Rilke quote, from Letters to a Young Poet. You should read the whole letter to get a better sense of what Rilke’s talking about, although even in context the subject is somewhat confusing. Rilke’s saying that what we conceive of as fate doesn’t just happen to us but comes out of who we are. We think of the future as something coming towards us, but we’re the ones who are moving towards the future. Not the other way around. That idea, by itself, is somewhat simple, but Rilke’s larger point about fate and sadness is more complicated.

It’s more difficult to understand partly due to it’s poetic nature, and also due to the translation from Swedish to English.

The author seems to point out that the future enters us long before we know it and we move on with this new guest in ourselves. The recipient of the poetic letter is living with aids. The author appears to be trying in some way to help through their words of insight.

@ironhiway: er, Rilke wrote the letters in German, and he wrote them between 1903 and 1908, which was a little bit before the AIDS virus was discovered.

Thanks cwilbur for correcting my error’s. 1904 and I assumed Sweedish because of where it was written, Borgeby gard, Fladie, Sweden. I appreciate your setting me straight, I assumed the aids also due to someone on the staffs struggle with he disease.
And that it appeared to be focused on the type of realization process that one goes through during the onset aids. Obviously not something going on in 1904.

Mirza thanks for the question it gave me something to read that I otherwise would not have in the middle of the night, sorry for my errors, The author does appear to be trying in some way to offer help through their words of insight.

did you guys figure out what he means by “infinite space” ?

I’d want to read it in the original German before I put forth a guess.

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Austro-German lyric poet, 1875 – 1926

People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they ill also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them. Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun’s motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.
http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter8.html

We have already had to think so many of our concepts of motion, we will also gradually learn to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them. Only because so many have not absorbed their destinies and transmuted them within themselves while they were living in them, have they not recognized what has gone forth out of them; it was so strange to them that, in their bewildered fright, they thought it must only just then have entered into them, for they swear never before to have found anything like it in themselves. As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet mistaken about the motion of that which is to come. The future stands firm . . . but we move in infinite space. How should it not be difficult for us? ”
http://babelsandra.blogspot.com/2007/12/rainer-maria-rilke.html

We grew, of course, and sometimes were impatient in growing up, half for the sake of pleasing those with nothing left but their own grown-upness.

Yet, when alone, we entertained ourselves with what alone endures, we would stand there in the infinite space that spans the world and toys, upon a place, which from the first beginnniing had been prepared to serve a pure event.
http://www.ellopos.net/education/writersword_rilke_letter.htm

Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision; there remains for us yesterday’s street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left. Oh and night there is the night; when a wind full of infinite space gnawed at our faces. Rainer Maria Rilke trans. by Mitchell
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26193&page=3