The sentence is genuinely Rilke’s: it closes the argument of Letter Seven to Franz Xaver Kappus, and the German reads der Liebe, die darin besteht, daß zwei Einsamkeiten einander schützen, grenzen und grüßen. But his three verbs are schützen, grenzen, grüßen — protect, border, greet — and the popular English swaps “meet” for “border,” quietly deleting the one verb his whole argument turns on.
“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect, and greet each other” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Letter Seven (Rome, 14 May 1904). Rilke's German is "der Liebe, die darin besteht, daß zwei Einsamkeiten einander schützen, grenzen und grüßen" — two solitudes that protect, border and greet each other. The popular "two solitudes that meet" replaces the bordering verb and is not a wording found in the translation we verified. Checked at quotle.info
Can you use it?
? This exact English wording matches no translation we could pin down, so there’s no rights status to give it — Rilke’s German original (Insel-Verlag, 1929) is US public domain, but this variant isn’t it. Credit it as shown above; don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the themes of love, friendship and kindness. Theme: "Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect, and greet each other". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect, and greet each other". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The letter it comes from
Work
Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (Letters to a Young Poet)
Letter
Letter Seven, to Franz Xaver Kappus — Rome, 14 May 1904
First published
1929, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig — posthumously, gathered by Kappus
Translation
M. D. Herter Norton, W. W. Norton, New York, 1934
Und diese menschlichere Liebe (die unendlich rücksichtsvoll und leise, und gut und klar in Binden und Lösen sich vollziehen wird) wird jener ähneln, die wir ringend und mühsam vorbereiten, der Liebe, die darin besteht, daß zwei Einsamkeiten einander schützen, grenzen und grüßen.
German original
The three verbs are schützen (protect), grenzen (to border, to form a limit with) and grüßen (to greet or salute). M. D. Herter Norton’s English renders the last clause “protect and border and salute each other,” as printed in a scan of that translation ↗. No translation we checked uses “meet.”
The German primary text is online in full: the letter of 14 May 1904 to Franz Xaver Kappus ↗ closes its argument on love with the sentence der Liebe, die darin besteht, daß zwei Einsamkeiten einander schützen, grenzen und grüßen.
The English descends from a named, datable translation: the 1934 W. W. Norton edition ↗, translated by M. D. Herter Norton, catalogued as a translation of Briefe an einen jungen Dichter.
Wikiquote’s sourced Rilke page ↗ dates the surrounding passages — on love as a burden and apprenticeship, and on the coming “female human being” — to the same Letter Seven of 14 May 1904.
Two different clocks run here. Rilke’s German original was first published in 1929, before the 1931 US cutoff, so the German sentence is public domain in the United States. The standard English, M. D. Herter Norton’s translation, was published by W. W. Norton in 1934 and remains in copyright. The wording asked about matches neither exactly — it is an unattributed English variant of unknown origin — so we assert no rights status for it.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What actually went wrong
This is not a fake quote. The author is right, the book is right, the date is right. What has drifted is the English — and it drifted in exactly the place where the sentence carries its meaning.
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The wording“meet” in place of “border” paraphrase
Rilke’s German is daß zwei Einsamkeiten einander schützen, grenzen und grüßen, as printed in the letter of 14 May 1904 ↗. Grenzen is to bound, to form a border with. Two solitudes that meet is a different and much softer idea than two solitudes that hold a line between them.
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The translatorM. D. Herter Norton, uncredited credit dropped
The English sentence that this variant loosens comes from a published translation. The 1934 Norton edition ↗ was translated by M. D. Herter Norton and issued by W. W. Norton in New York; in a readable scan of that translation ↗ the closing clause is “protect and border and salute each other.” Quote cards almost never name a translator at all.
✕
The citationSourceless quote cards and captions no source
The line normally travels with nothing but Rilke’s name. Yet the letter is precisely locatable: Wikiquote sources a whole run of neighbouring passages ↗ to Letter Seven, 14 May 1904 — the same letter this sentence comes from.
In late 1902 a nineteen-year-old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Franz Xaver Kappus (1883–1966) ↗, wrote to Rilke asking whether his poems were any good. Rilke answered him ten times over the next several years, and mostly declined to talk about the poems at all. He talked instead about solitude, patience, and how badly people love.
Letter Seven, written from Rome on 14 May 1904, is the love letter of the sequence — and its argument is that love is not a merging. Young lovers, Rilke says, throw themselves together before either of them is anybody yet. What he wants instead arrives in the letter’s final movement, in a formula built out of three verbs: schützen, grenzen, grüßen. Two solitudes that guard each other, set a limit to each other, and salute each other across it.
Schützen, grenzen, grüßen. The middle verb is the one the internet drops.
How a private letter became the most-quoted thing Rilke wrote
Rilke never prepared these letters for publication. Kappus kept them, and after Rilke’s death in 1926 he gathered and published the ten of them as Briefe an einen jungen Dichter — issued by Insel-Verlag in Leipzig in 1929, according to the publication history of the book ↗.
The first English version came from M. D. Herter Norton, published by W. W. Norton in New York in 1934; the catalogue record for that edition ↗ describes it as a translation of Briefe an einen jungen Dichter, containing letters written to F. X. Kappus during 1903–1908. Nearly every English quotation of the two-solitudes line descends from a translation, and nearly none of them names one.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1875–1926 · Austrian poet · wrote in German and French
Rilke was born in Prague in 1875 and died near Montreux, Switzerland, in 1926. He is generally reckoned the greatest German-language poet of the early twentieth century, on the strength of The Book of Hours, New Poems, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, and the late Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. His most-quoted prose, though, is not a book he published: it is a run of ten letters written between 1903 and 1908 to a young officer cadet, printed only after his death.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Letters to a Young Poet, Letter Seven
Rainer Maria Rilke, “An Franz Xaver Kappus, Rom, am 14. Mai 1904,” Letter Seven in Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1929); English in Letters to a Young Poet, trans. M. D. Herter Norton (New York: W. W. Norton, 1934).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect, and greet each other’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/love-consists-of-this-two-solitudes-that-meet-protect-and/