How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMSuch 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.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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Greed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
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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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Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
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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.
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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.
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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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Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
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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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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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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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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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One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
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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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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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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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