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.
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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 HILLESUMDespite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUMThe 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 HILLESUMHere, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
ETTY HILLESUMNever give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUMI’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUMHow rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMEverything 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 HILLESUMIt 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
ETTY HILLESUMAnd 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 HILLESUMSometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.
ETTY HILLESUMOur 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 HILLESUMOne must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
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 HILLESUMI don’t think I have nerves of steel, far from it, but I can certainly stand up to things. I am not afraid to look suffering straight in the eyes.
ETTY HILLESUM