black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.

Etty Hillesum

Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUM

Born Necessary Word
The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship, sailing across endless oceans, never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it will find mooring for a moment.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
After each creative act one has to be sustained by one’s strength of character, by a moral sense, by I don’t know what, lest one tumble.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Everything is chance, or nothing is chance. If I believed the first, I would be unable to live on, but I am not yet fully convinced of the second.
ETTY HILLESUM

Believe Chance Convince Live Myself
That I should die next week, I would still be able to sit at my desk all week and study with perfect equanimity, for I know now that life and death make a meaningful whole.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Life 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 HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
I’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
The fact is I don’t lead a simple enough inner life. I indulge in excesses, bacchanalia of the spirit. Perhaps I identify too much with everything I read and study. Someone like Dostoevsky still shatters me.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
And now that I don’t want to own anything any more and am free, now I suddenly own everything, now my inner riches are immeasurable.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur

We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Etty Hillesum Quotes