„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.“

— Etty Hillesum

12 July 1942, p. 488-89
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update March 11, 2022.

Etty Hillesum28

Jewish diarist 1914 - 1943

— Kristin Hannah, book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

God, Thinking, Time, Help

„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.“

— Etty Hillesum Jewish diarist 1914 - 1943

11 July 1942, p. 484-85
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God, Fools, Help

„We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves.“

— Jane Austen, book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Fate, Help, Forgetting

„I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,
and somehow, each of us will help the other live,
and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.“

— Adrienne Rich American poet, essayist and feminist 1929 - 2012

Source: Twenty One Love Poems

Help

„There is one great God and power that has made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in this world. This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help and do good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief one unto another.“

— William Penn English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania 1644 - 1718

Letter to the Lenape Nation (18 October 1681); as published in William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania 1680 - 1684: A Documentary History, (1983) edited by Jean R. Soderlund, University of Pennsylvania Press
Context: There is one great God and power that has made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in this world. This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help and do good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief one unto another. Now this great God has been pleased to make me concerned in your parts of the world, and the king of the country where I live has given unto me a great province therein, but I desire to enjoy it with your friends, else what would the great God say to us, who has made us not to devour and destroy one another, but live soberly and kindly together in the world.
Now I would have you well observe, that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that has been too much exercised towards you by the people of these parts of the world, who have sought themselves, and to make great advantages by you, rather than be examples of justice and goodness unto you; which I hear has been matter of trouble to you and caused great grudgings and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood, which has made the great god angry. But I am not such man as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward you, and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly.

Love, God, People, World

„If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.“

— Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-British philosopher 1889 - 1951

Life, God, People, Religion

„My first informed impression, and what I would like to achieve, I can perhaps only realize when I am impelled as in a vision. One of my figures, perhaps one from the Temptation, sang his strange song to me one night –.. We are playing hide-and-seek, we are playing hide-and-seek across a thousand seas, we gods.... when the skies are red in the middle of the night, when the skies are red at night. You cannot see us, you cannot see us but you are ourselves.... that is what makes us laugh so gaily... Stars are our eyes and nebulae our beards.... we have people's souls for our hearts. We hide ourselves and you cannot see us, which is just what we want.“

— Max Beckmann German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer 1884 - 1950

Source: 1930s, On my Painting (1938), p. 19

God, People, Soul, Star

„I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist.“

— Dave Eggers memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher 1970

Source: What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006), Ch. 26, pp. 474-475

God, People, Help

„And therefore you must know that you can forfeit the grace and help of God by your willful sinning or negligence, though you cannot, without grace, turn to God. If you will not do what you can, it is just with God to deny you that grace by which you might do more.“

— Richard Baxter, book A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live

A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live, Preface.

God, Help

„I did not want this struggle. Since January, 1933, when Providence entrusted me with the leadership of the German Reich, I had an aim before my eyes which was essentially incorporated in the program of our National Socialist party. I have never been disloyal to this aim and have never abandoned my program… Only when the entire German people become a single community of sacrifice can we expect and hope that Almighty God will help us. The Almighty has never helped a lazy man. He does not help the coward. He does not help a people that cannot help itself. The principle applies here, help yourselves and Almighty God will not deny you his assistance.“

— Adolf Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party 1889 - 1945

Radio broadcast from Berlin, 3 October 1941. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adolf-hitler-broadcast-to-the-german-people-on-the-winter-help-scheme-october-1941
1940s

God, People, Hope, Communication

„If we are faithful to GOD in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life.“

— James Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

(J. Hudson Taylor. A Retrospect. Philadelphia: China Inland Mission, n.d., 20).

Life, God, Faith, Help

„I care deeply about those who struggle to get by — but I believe the best thing to do is help them stand on their own two feet. And no, that’s not saying, "You're on your own," but, "We are on your side, helping you be all you can." And I believe in something for something; not something for nothing.“

— David Cameron Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1966

"The Scarlet Z, for Zombie (Reaganite)" https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-scarlet-z-etc/ (15 August 2018), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online
2010s, 2014

Help

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

— Etty Hillesum Jewish diarist 1914 - 1943

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.
11 July 1942, p. 484-85
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God, Help

„God help me if I ever injure my back," Clayton quipped.
"God help you if you ever turn it," Whitney snapped, "for there'll surely be some heartbroken papa or cuckolded husband ready with a knife--if I don't murder you first.“

— Judith McNaught, book Whitney, My Love

Source: Whitney, My Love

God, Help

„Stop worrying about what you cannot control. It’s a total waste of your energy, energy that could otherwise be used to help you focus on what you can influence. I spend large parts of my coaching sessions helping people to sift through their challenges and concerns – helping them to determine what they can change and what they have no control over.“

— Nigel Cumberland British author and leadership coach 1967

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

People, Change, Help, Parting

„It's up to you now, and we shall help you — that my past does not become your future.“

— Elie Wiesel writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor 1928 - 2016

Speech at the UN World Peace Day (21 September 2006) New York, Speech in UN Webcast (00:16:35) http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/specialevents/se050921.rm

Past, Future, Help

„You know what I want. If I may become a clergyman, if I fulfill that position so that my work is equal to that of our Father [who was a clergy-man], then I shall thank God. I have good hope that I shall succeed, it was once said to me by someone who was further on in life than I, and who was no stranger in Jerusalem:… I believe that you are a Christian, you see, it was so good for me to hear those words… It is good to believe that there is a God who knows what we need, better than we know it ourselves, and who helps us when we need help. It is also good to believe that, just as in the olden days, now, too, an angel is not far from those who feel godly sorrow… I've carefully read the story of Elijah so often, and so often has it given me strength up to now:“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

Vincent then quotes 1 Kings 19:3-15, leaving out all but the beginning of verses 14 and 15
quote from his letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 31 May 1877 letter 118 http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let118/letter.html
1870s

Life, God, Hope, Angels

„Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.“

— Vera Nazarian American writer 1966

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Help

„Senator Grace and I cannot do this alone. We need the help of every one of you, of every Filipino!“

— Francis Escudero Filipino politician 1969

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

Help

„Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I had noticed him, as he had me. God help us.“

— Sarah Dunant, book The Birth of Venus

Source: The Birth of Venus

Life, God, People, Time

Etty Hillesum28

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