On Art
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Art is childhood, after all. Art means to be oblivious to the fact that the world already exists and to create one. Not to destroy what one encounters but simply not to find anything complete. Countless possibilities. Countless wishes. And suddenly to be fulfillment, to be summer, to have sun. Without speaking about it, unwittingly. Never to be done. Never to have the seventh day. Never to see that all is good. Dissatisfaction is youth. God was too old at the beginning, I think. Otherwise he would not have stopped on the evening of the sixth day. And not on the thousandth day. Still not today. This is all I hold against him. That he could expend himself. That he thought that his book was finished with the creation of the human and that he has now put away his quill to wait and see how many editions will be printed. That he was no artist is so very sad. That yet he was no artist. One wants to cry over this and lose all courage for everything.