Quote from Letters to a Young Poet

¨...We have been put into life as into the
element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through
thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly
that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be
differentiated from everything around us.
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there
are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in
accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust
in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will
become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths
about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses?
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting
to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that
wants our love.¨
Rilke