“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.”

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet* (1929)

“I live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Widening Circles' (1899)

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 'I Am Too Alone in the World' (1903)

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those …”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet* (1929)

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Go to the Limits of Your Longing' (1903)

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, …”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet* (1929)