The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
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.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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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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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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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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After each creative act one has to be sustained by one’s strength of character, by a moral sense, by I don’t know what, lest one tumble.
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I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
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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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That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
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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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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.
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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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We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
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Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
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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.
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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
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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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