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 HILLESUMEvery 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.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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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.
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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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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.
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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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I’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
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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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How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
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I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.
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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
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Sometimes I feel that every word spoken and every gesture made merely serve to exacerbate misunderstandings. Then what I would really like is to escape into a great silence and impose that silence on everyone else.
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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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Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
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The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
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I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.
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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.
ETTY HILLESUM