black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Such 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

How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUM

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

Born Necessary Word
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
Greed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
ETTY HILLESUM

Digest Information Intellectual Life Mental
Suffering has always been with us; does it really matter in what form it comes? All that matters is how we bear it and how we fit it into our lives.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
ETTY HILLESUM

Act Healing Self Love Willing Wound
I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.
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
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
Life 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 HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
I 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

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
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
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur

Such 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Such 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Etty Hillesum Quotes