The Diary of a Young Girl

by Anne Frank

As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more.

On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune. If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance.

Sometimes I'm so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again.

I can't imagine how anyone could say "I'm weak" and then stay that way, if you know that about yourself, why not fight it, why not develop your character? Their answer has always been: "Because it's much easier not to!" This reply leaves me feeling rather discouraged. Easy? Does that mean a life of deceit and laziness is easy too?

How can I make it clear to him that, while it may seem easy and wonderful, it will drag him down to the depths, to a place where he'll no longer find friends, support or beauty, and so far down that he may never rise to the surface again?

We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but . . . we have to earn it. And that's something you can't achieve by taking the easy way out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.

In everything I do, I can watch myself as if I were a stranger. I can stand across from the everyday Anne and, without being biased or making excuses, watch what she's doing, both the good and the bad.