How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
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To live fully, outwardly and inwardly, not to ignore the external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse, that’s quite a task.
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Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
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There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.
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Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
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If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
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We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
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It is the only thing we can do. Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate that we add to this world makes it sill more inhospitable
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I 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.
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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
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The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
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I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.
ETTY HILLESUM