We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
ETTY HILLESUMAfter 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.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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If 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.
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Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
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I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
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Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
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Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
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Every day I shall put my papers in order and every day I shall say farewell. And the real farewell, when it comes, will only be a small outward confirmation of what has been accomplished within me from day to day.
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The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
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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