Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Etty Hillesum
Age: 29 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 15
Died: 1943
Died: November 30
Biographer
Diarist
Teacher
Woman Of Letters
Writer
Esther Hillesum
Feelings
Lived
Away
Completely
Else
Worth
Live
Minutes
Dropped
Something
Full
Anticipation
Always
Feeling
Preparation
Life
Greater
Minute
Living
Genuine

More quotes by Etty Hillesum

Image
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
Image
I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
Etty Hillesum
Image
Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship, sailing across endless oceans, never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it will find mooring for a moment.
Etty Hillesum
Image
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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
Image
That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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.
Etty Hillesum
Image
Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The externals are simply so many props everything we need is within us.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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
Image
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.
Etty Hillesum
Image
Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that's not too awful either, but never, never give up.
Etty Hillesum
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum