Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUMRelated Topics
Anand Thakur
Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUMI do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.
ETTY HILLESUMEach of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
ETTY HILLESUMI know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream…and life continues.
ETTY HILLESUMGreed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
ETTY HILLESUMNever give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUMThe more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
ETTY HILLESUMLife is good, after all…and that’s what stays with me, even now, even when I’m about to be packed off to Poland.
ETTY HILLESUMI’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUMOne must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUMHow rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one burdens the future with one’s worries, it cannot grow organically. I am filled with confidence, not that I shall succeed in worldly things, but that even when things go badly for me I shall still find life good and worth living.
ETTY HILLESUMThat fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
ETTY HILLESUMLife cannot be captured in a few axioms. And that is just what I keep trying to do. But it won’t work, for life is full of endless nuances and cannot be captured in just a few formulae.
ETTY HILLESUMSuch words as ‘God’ and ‘Death’ and ‘Suffering’ and ‘Eternity’ are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.
ETTY HILLESUM