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
Etty Hillesum quotes about
trying nuance life-is
Life cannot be captured in a few axioms. And that is just what I keep trying to do. But it won't work, for life is full of endless nuances and cannot be captured in just a few formulae.
promise trying special
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.
god hands trying
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.
redeeming search
We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought.
actual determination exhausted left strength
I would . . . be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
determination would-be exhausted
I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
needs props
The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us.
writing islands black
Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.
greed intellectual information
Greed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.
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.
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.
missing missing-out
That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.
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.