“Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the earth, seems irrevocable.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Rainer Maria Rilke 176
Austrian poet and writer 1875–1926Related quotes
“all at once
I saw
that the sun
was round! Since then
I have been the happiest man on Earth!”
Source: Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985), p. 29
This quotation was first used in print (and misattributed to Leonardo da Vinci) in a science fiction story published in 1975, The Storms of Windhaven. One of the authors, Lisa Tuttle, remembers that the quote was suggested by science fiction writer Ben Bova, who says he believes he got the quote from a TV documentary narrated by Fredric March, presumably I, Leonardo da Vinci, written by John H. Secondari for the series Saga of Western Man, which aired on 23 February 1965. Bova incorrectly assumed that he was quoting da Vinci. The probable author is John Hermes Secondari (1919-1975), American author and television producer.
Misattributed
Variant: For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
“For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet”
196
The Symposium
“Everyone is vulnerable who is at once gifted and gregarious.”
"Orson Welles" (1961), p. 297
Tynan Right and Left (1967)
“What once sprung from earth sinks back into the earth.”
Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante,
in terras.
Book II, lines 999–1000 (tr. Bailey)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)