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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Anand Thakur
One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
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 HILLESUMI’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUMThere 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 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 HILLESUMDespite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUMI know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream…and life continues.
ETTY HILLESUMTo 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 HILLESUMHow rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMThat fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUMSometimes 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 HILLESUMHere, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
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 HILLESUMNever give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUMThe more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
ETTY HILLESUM