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.
ETTY HILLESUMGreed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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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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I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
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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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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.
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Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
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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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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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I 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.
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Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
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I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
ETTY HILLESUM






