Etty Hillesum Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• When I pray, I never pray for myself, always for others, or else I hold a silly, naive, or deadly serious dialogue with what is deepest inside me, which for the sake of convenience I call God. Praying to God for something for yourself strikes me as being too childish for words. To pray for another's well-being is something I find childish as well; one should only pray that another should have enough strength to shoulder his burden. If you do that, you lend him some of your own strength.

  Etty Hillesum

  Silly, Should Have, Sake

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.494, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  30 Copy quote

• How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.

  Etty Hillesum

  Destiny, Men, Shapes

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.258, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  41 Copy quote

• A large group of us were crowded into the Gestapo hall, and at that moment the circumstances of all our lives were the same. All of us occupied the same space, the men behind the desk no less than those about to be questioned. What distinguished each of us was only our inner attitude.

  Etty Hillesum

  Peace, Attitude, Men

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.258, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  65 Copy quote

• I feel like a small battlefield in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.

  Etty Hillesum

  Inspirational, Running, Struggle

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.63, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  60 Copy quote

• 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

  Eye, Thinking, Suffering

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.545, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  32 Copy quote

• 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

  Silence, Gestures, Sometimes

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.131, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Reality, Tasks, Sake

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.53, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.

  Etty Hillesum

  Missing, Missing Out

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.146, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• Most people write off their longing for friends and family as so many losses in their lives, when they should count the fact that their heart is able to long so hard and to love so much as among their greatest blessings.

  Etty Hillesum

  Writing, Heart, Loss

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.637, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Etty Hillesum

  Meaningful, Acceptance, Next Week

  Etty Hillesum (1985). “An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”

  50 Copy quote

• 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

  Want, Riches

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.25, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.

  Etty Hillesum

  Needs, Props

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.463, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Suffering, Doe, Matter

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.460, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  15 Copy quote

• Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.

  Etty Hillesum

  Wall, Views, Cells

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.71, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Sorrow, Share, Broads

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.308, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.

  Etty Hillesum

  Writing, Born

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.341, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Etty Hillesum

  People, Tree, Feelings

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.305, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  18 Copy quote

• And I believe that I will never be able to hate any human being for his so-called 'wickedness,' that I shall only hate the evil that is within me, though hate is perhaps putting it too strongly even then. In any case, we cannot be lax enough in what we demand of others and strict enough in what we demand of ourselves.

  Etty Hillesum

  Hate, Believe, Evil

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.307, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  26 Copy quote

• Become simple and live simply, not only within yourself but also in your everyday dealings. Don’t make ripples all around you, don’t try to be interesting, keep your distance, be honest, fight the desire to be thought fascinating by the outside world.

  Etty Hillesum

  Distance, Fighting, Simple

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.315, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  28 Copy quote

• 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

  God, Hands, Trying

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.640, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Poland, Stay With Me

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Simple, Indulge In, Excess

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.93, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• Slowly but surely I have been soaking Rilke up these last few months: the man, his work and his life. And that is probably the only right way with literature, with study, with people or with anything else: to let it all soak in, to let it all mature slowly inside you until it has become a part of yourself. That, too, is a growing process. Everything is a growing process. And in between, emotions and sensations that strike you like lightning. But still the most important thing is the organic process of growing.

  Etty Hillesum

  Men, People, Important

  Etty Hillesum (1983). “An interrupted life: the diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, Lester & Orpen Dennys

  7 Copy quote

• One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.

  Etty Hillesum

  Moments, Accepting, Honestly

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.549, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Character, Creative, Moral

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.296, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  5 Copy quote

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