---
title: "Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) - IVU - International Vegetarian Union"
description: "Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926): Excerpts from Rilke and Andreas-Salome: A Love Story in Letters , Norton, 2006: At the inn (a sad little trattoria ) I even have to eat a meat dish now and then, much as I did rather not; for vegetarian life appeals to me more and more, and I still avoid any drink"
url: "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2487:history-europe20a-rilke&catid=60"
date: "2026-11-05T23:59:27+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

#  Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

![Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/banners/history-europe20a-rilke.png)Excerpts from *Rilke and Andreas-Salome:* *A Love Story in Letters*, Norton, 2006:

> At the inn (a sad little *trattoria*) I even have to eat a meat dish now and then, much as I did rather not; for vegetarian life appeals to me more and more, and I still avoid any drink with alcohol in it, preferring instead herbal tea and coffee I brew myself, which have became great pleasures. \[January 21, 1904\]
>
> Regarding \[the university most suitable for me\] I often think of Zurich. Because presumably I would be able to live in the country there and maintain a vegetarian diet. \[Oct. 19, 1904\]
>
> Today, according to the day’s date, it has been a month since I arrived here. I have spent it under a strict vegetarian regimen … \[June 29, 1914\]
>
> Board and everything else is, given Munich prices and our own vegetarian diet, very affordable; so you will be able to settle in quite frugally. \[March 13, 1915\]

- **[Rilke on wikipedia ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke)**

A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly.

Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value.

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