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
strength thinking people
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
hate healing thinking
It is the only thing we can do. Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate that we add to this world makes it sill more inhospitable
eye thinking suffering
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.
thinking inward turns
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
emotional thinking noble
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.
actual determination exhausted left strength
I would . . . be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.
redeeming search
We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought.
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.
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.
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.
men people important
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.