Rilke

"With every day that passes I see more clearly how right I was to resist from the start, with all my strength, the catch-phrase beloved of my relations: that art is just something for leisure hours after coming home from the office or whatever.--I find that a frightful statement. For me, it is an article of faith that he who does not devote himself to art with all his desires and everything in him can never reach the highest goal. He is simply not an artist. And it cannot be overweening pride if I confess that I feel myself an artist, maybe weak and hesitant in power and boldness, but still conscious of a luminous aim, of all the seriousness, splendour, and truth of all artistic creation. I don't see art as a martyrdom, but as a battle which the chosen one must fight, with himself and those around him, to strive pure in heart towards the great objective, the one great day of festival, and to pass on with full hands, to those who come after, the serene reconciliation achieved. But that needs a whole man! not just a few free hours of weariness..."

-From an 1896 letter of Rilke's. He was 21.