How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMRelated Topics
Anand Thakur
How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUM
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
We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
ETTY HILLESUM
Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUM
We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
ETTY HILLESUM
The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
ETTY HILLESUM
Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.
ETTY HILLESUM
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.
ETTY HILLESUM
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.
ETTY HILLESUM
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.
ETTY HILLESUM
I’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUM
Sometimes 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 HILLESUM
If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUM
Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUM
Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUM
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