Letters to a Young Poet

by Rainer Maria Rilke

No one can advise and assist you, no one. There is only one way: go into yourself. Seek out the reason that commands you to write; discover if it has stretched out its roots into the deepest part of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would have to die if it were forbidden you to write.

If your daily life seems poor to you, do not blame that: blame yourself. Tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor and unimportant place.

A work of art is good if it has come to be from necessity. Its judgment lies in the manner of its origin, and in nothing else. And that is why, dear sir, I knew I had no advice for you but this: to go into yourself and to examine the depths from which your life springs; at its source you will find the answer to the question—whether you must create.

only wanted to advise you also, to grow quietly and seriously throughout your development too; you cannot disturb it more violently than if you look to the outside and from the outside expect a response to questions that only your innermost feeling at your quietest hour can possibly answer.

Works of art are of an unlimited solitude, and can be reached by nothing so little as criticism.

There is no measuring with time, not even a year matters, and ten years are nothing. To be an artist means: to neither reckon nor count; to ripen like the tree, which does not rush its sap, and stands firm in the storms of spring, without anxiety that summer may not come after. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there, as if eternity lay before them, so carelessly silent and vast. I learn it daily, learn it with pain, am grateful for it: Patience is all!

If you adhere to nature, to what is simple in it, to what is small and overlooked, but can so unexpectedly become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for things that are most small and wholly simple, striving like a servant to gain their trust, even though they are obviously poor: then everything will become easier, more harmonious, and at some level reconciled, maybe not in the sense of explicit understanding, which stands back amazed, but in your innermost consciousness, in wakefulness and knowledge.

And so, dear sir, love your solitude, accept the pain it causes you, and make a melody with it.

perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us just once as beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrifying is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants help from us.

always my wish that you find enough patience in yourself to endure, and enough simplicity to believe; that you gain more and more confidence in what is difficult, and in particular your solitude. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, every time.