Quote

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 Hillesum

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Etty Hillesum
Age: 29 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 15
Died: 1943
Died: November 30
Biographer
Diarist
Teacher
Woman Of Letters
Writer
Esther Hillesum
Feel
Sparks
Feels
Persistence
Giving
Determination
Life
Soon
Like
Duty
Inside
Ablaze
Keep
Rally
Moments
Spark

More quotes by Etty Hillesum

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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
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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
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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
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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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
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Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.
Etty Hillesum
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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
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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Greed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
Etty Hillesum
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A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.
Etty Hillesum
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Such words as 'God' and 'Death' and 'Suffering' and 'Eternity' are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.
Etty Hillesum
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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Before, I always lived in anticipation . . . that it was all a preparation for something else, something greater, more genuine. But that feeling has dropped away from me completely. I live here and now, this minute, this day, to the full, and the life is worth living.
Etty Hillesum
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The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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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.
Etty Hillesum
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We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
Etty Hillesum
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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