There 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 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.
More Etty Hillesum Quotes
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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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I’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
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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 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.
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That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
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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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Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
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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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I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
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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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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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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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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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Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
ETTY HILLESUM