Etty Hillesum citations

“Une fois c'est un Hitler, une autre fois Ivan le Terrible par exemple, une fois c'est la résignation, une autre fois les guerres, la peste, les tremblements de terre, la famine. Les instruments de la souffrance importent peu, ce qui compte, c'est la façon de porter, de supporter, d'assumer une souffrance consubstantielle à la vie et de conserver intact à travers les épreuves un petit morceau de son âme.”

“« Après la guerre, à côté d'un flot d'humanisme, un flot de haine déferlera sur le monde. » En entendant ces mots, j'en ai eu encore une fois la certitude : je partirai en guerre contre cette haine.”

“Je suis de ceux qui préfèrent continuer à se laisser flotter sur le dos les yeux tournés vers le ciel.”

“La réalité, c'est qu'en maints endroits de ce monde, des hommes et des femmes sont dans l'impossibilité de se rejoindre. Les hommes sont au front. la vie concentrationnaire. Les prisons. La séparation. Voilà la réalité. C'est avec cette réalité là qu'il faut se tirer d'affaire. Et on n'est tout de même pas obligé de se consumer vainement de désir et de commettre le péché d'Onan? Cet amour qu'on ne peut plus déverser sur une personne unique, sur l'autre sexe, ne pourrait-on pas le convertir en une force bénéfique à la communauté humaine et qui mériterait peut-être aussi le nom d'amour? Et lorsqu'on s'y efforce, ne se trouve-t-on pas précisément en pleine réalité? Réalité sans doute moins tangible que celle d'un homme et d'une femme couchés dans un lit. Mais n'y a-t-il pas d'autres réalités? Il y a quelque chose de puéril et d'indigent à entendre un petit bonhomme plus tout jeune vous parler (à notre époque, mon Dieu, à notre époque!) de « libérer ses instincts .»”

“Et puisque, désormais libre, je ne veux plus rien posséder, désormais tout m'appartient et ma richesse intérieure est immense.”

“L'homme forge son destin de l'intérieur, voilà une affirmation bien téméraire. En revanche l'homme est libre de choisir l'accueil qu'il fera en lui-même de son destin. On ne connait pas la vie de quelqu'un si l'on n'en sait que les événements extérieurs. Pour connaître la vie de quelqu'un, il faut connaître ses rêves, ses rapports avec ses parents, ses états d'âme, ses désillusions, sa maladie et sa mort.”

“Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.”

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

“It is sometimes hard to take in and comprehend, oh God, what those created in Your likeness do to each other in these disjointed days. But I no longer shut myself away in my room, God; I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes, and to discover the small, naked human being amid the monstrous wreckage caused by man’s senseless deeds.”

“My ideas hang on me like outsize clothes into which I still have to grow. My mind lags behind my intuition.”

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”

“Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.”

“The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down on the box for a chat, the sun is shining on my face — and right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension.”

“I am ready for everything, for anywhere on this earth, wherever God may send me, and I am ready to bear witness in any situation and unto death that life is beautiful and meaningful and that it is not God’s fault that things are as they are at present, but our own.”

“That is probably the hardest thing a person can learn, as I so often find in others (and in myself as well in the past) to forgive one’s own mistakes and lapses.”

“The inner world is as real as the outer world. One ought to be conscious of that. It, too, has its landscape, contours, possibilities, its boundless regions.”

“Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields–there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze–and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.”

“One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.”

“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.”

“There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then He must be dug out again.”

“And if God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help God.”

“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.”

“And if God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help God. — The surface of the earth is gradually turning into one great prison camp, and soon there will be nobody left outside. … I don't fool myself about the real state of affairs, and I've even dropped the pretense that I'm out to help others. I shall merely try to help God as best I can, and if I succeed in doing that, then I shall be of use to others as well. But I mustn't have heroic illusions about that either.”

“Through me course wide rivers and in me rise tall mountains. And beyond the thickets of my agitation and confusion there stretch the wide plains of my peace and surrender. All landscapes are within me. And there is room for everything. The earth is in me, and the sky. And I well know that something like hell can also be in one, though I no longer experience it in myself, but I can still feel it in others with great intensity. And that is as it should be, or else I might grow too complacent.”

“We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.”

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.”

“Greed probably figures in my intellectual life as well, as I attempt to absorb a massive amount of information with consequent mental indigestion.”

“The absence of hatred in no way implies the absence of moral indig­nation.”

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.”