Etty Hillesum
Etty Hillesum
Esther "Etty" Hillesumwas the author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943 she was deported and killed in Auschwitz concentration camp...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth15 January 1914
hate believe evil
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.
destiny men shapes
How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
ocean sailing desire
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.
prayer night lasts
I'm afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
destiny luck firsts
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.
suffering matter bears
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.
determination would-be exhausted
I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
want riches
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.
feelings preparation anticipation
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.
peace world moral-duty
The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
missing missing-out
That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
determination home night
I keep remembering from my early student days how I would walk at night through the streets, my hands bunched into fists in the pocket of my coat, my head hunched deep into my collar, and how I used to say, 'I want to work, I shall work'--and then I would come back home and be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
fighting lakes worry
We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
simple indulge-in excess
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.