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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.

Etty Hillesum

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 HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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 HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
I’m afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Believe Chance Convince Live Myself
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
ETTY HILLESUM

Act Healing Self Love Willing Wound
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Life is good, after all…and that’s what stays with me, even now, even when I’m about to be packed off to Poland.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
ETTY HILLESUM

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 HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
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.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
ETTY HILLESUM

Anand Thakur
Every word born of an inner necessity – writing must never be anything else.
ETTY HILLESUM

Born Necessary Word

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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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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Popular Authors

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