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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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 HILLESUMWe should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
ETTY HILLESUMHow rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ETTY HILLESUMI 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 HILLESUMThe externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
ETTY HILLESUMHere, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
ETTY HILLESUMIf 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.
ETTY HILLESUMSuffering 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 HILLESUMDespite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUMThat fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
ETTY HILLESUMEvery word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUMOne must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
ETTY HILLESUMIf one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
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.
ETTY HILLESUMEach of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
ETTY HILLESUMThe more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
ETTY HILLESUM