“Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke , book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

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Rainer Maria Rilke 176

Austrian poet and writer 1875–1926

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Rainer Maria Rilke 176

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