An Interrupted Life Quotes

“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.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“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. ”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43

“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.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“The mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself: life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures, so I cannot take the responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into the world.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“It is sheer hell in this house. I would have to be quite a writer to describe it properly. Anyhow, I sprang from the chaos and it is my business to pull myself out of it.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43

“There is nothing else for it, I shall have to solve my own problems. I always get the feeling that when I solve them for myself I shall have also solved them for a thousand other women. For that very reason, I must come to grips with myself.

All this devouring of books from early youth has been nothing but laziness on my part. I allow others to formulate what I ought to be formulating myself. I keep seeking outside confirmation of what is hidden deep inside me, when I know that I can only reach clarity by using my own words. I really must abandon all that laziness, and particularly my inhibitions and insecurity, if I am ever to find myself, and through myself, find others. I must have clarity, and I must learn to accept myself. Everything feels so heavy inside me, and I want so much to feel light. For years I have bottled everything up, it all goes into some great reservoir, but it will have to come out again, or I shall know that I have lived in vain, that I have taken from mankind and given nothing back. I sometimes feel I am a parasite and that depresses me and makes me wonder if I lead any kind of useful life.

Perhaps my purpose in life is to come to grips with myself, properly to grips with myself, with everything that bothers and tortures me and clamors for inner solution and formulation. For these problems are not just mine alone. And if at the end of a long life I am able to give some form to the chaos inside me, I may well have fulfilled my own small purpose.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on. . . I’ve already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Vroeger blikte ik in een chaotische toekomst, omdat ik het moment, dat vlak voor me lag, niet wilde beleven. (...) Ik had soms het zekere, doch zeer vage gevoel, dat ik "iets zou kunnen worden" in de toekomst, iets "geweldigs" zou kunnen doen en dan af en toe weer die chaotische angst dat ik "toch wel naar de bliksem zou gaan". Ik begin te begrijpen hoe dat komt. Ik weigerde de vlak voor me liggende taken te doen. Ik weigerde van trede tot trede voort te klimmen voor die toekomst. (...)
Vroeger leefde ik altijd in een voorbereidend stadium, ik had het gevoel dat alles wat ik deed toch niet het "echte" was, maar voorbereiding tot iets anders, iets "groots", iets echts. Maar dat is nu volkomen van me afgevallen. Nu, vandaag, deze minuut leef ik en leef ik volop en is het leven waard geleefd te worden en wanneer ik zou weten, dat ik morgen zou sterven, dan zou ik zeggen: ik vind het heel jammer, maar het is goed geweest, zoals het geweest is.”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty: de nagelaten geschriften van Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

“Wanneer een S.S.-man me dood zou trappen, dan zou ik nog opkijken naar z'n gezicht en me met angstige verbazing en menselijke belangstelling afragen: Mijn God kerel, wat is er met jou allemaal voor verschrikkelijks in je leven gebeurd, dat je tot zùlke dingen komt?”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty: de nagelaten geschriften van Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

“I really must become a bit simpler. Let myself live a bit more. Not always insist on the results straight away. I know what the remedy is, though: just to crouch huddled up on the ground in a corner and listen to what is going on inside me. 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. Reestablish contact with a slice of eternity.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations?”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“At times I can certainly see a subject clearly and distinctly, think my way through it, great sweeping thoughts that I can scarcely grasp but which all at once give me an intense feeling of importance. Yet when I try to write them down they shrivel into nothing, and that's why I lack the courage to commit them to paper - in case I become too disillusioned with the fatuous little as they that emerges. But let me impress just one thing upon you, sister. Wash your hands of all attempts to embody those great, sweeping thoughts. The smallest, most fatuous little essay is worth more than the flood of grandiose ideas in which you like to wallow. Of course you must hold on to your forebodings and your intuitions. They are the sources upon which you draw, but be careful not to drown in them. Just organise things a little, exercise some mental hygiene. Your imagination and your emotions are like a vast ocean from which you wrest small pieces of land that may well be flooded again. The ocean is wide and elemental, but what matter are the small pieces of land you reclaim from it. The subject right before you is more important than those prodigious thoughts of Tolstoy and Napoleon that occurred to you in the middle of last night, and the lesson you gave that keen young girl and Friday night is more important than all your vague philosophizing. Never forget that. Don't overestimate your own intensity; it may give you the impression that you were cut out for greater things than the so-called men in the street, who's inner life is a closed book to you. In fact, you're no more than a weakling and a non-entity adrift and tossed by the waves. Keep your eyes fixed on the mainland and don't flounder helplessly in the ocean.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Abbiamo un ritmo di vita molto diverso, si deve permettere a ognuno di essere com’è. Quando vogliamo plasmare un altro secondo le nostre idee andiamo sempre a sbattere contro un muro e siamo sempre delusi, non dall’altra persona, ma dalle nostre pretese insoddisfatte. È un atteggiamento sciocco e molto poco democratico, ma umano. Forse con la psicologia si può arrivare alla vera libertà, non ci si può mai ricordare abbastanza che dobbiamo renderci veramente liberi dagli altri, ma che insieme dobbiamo lasciarli liberi, evitando di farcene un’idea predeterminata nella nostra fantasia. Alla fantasia rimangono comunque dei campi abbastanza vasti, anche se non la si applica alle persone care.”
― Etty Hillesum, Diario 1941-1943: Edizione integrale

“E qui bisogna menzionare anche quanto scritto da Walter Rathenau nelle sue Briefe an eine Liebende: “Le ho detto ciò che penso della morte volontaria, e le dirò ciò su cui non mi sono mai pronunciato: ma poi non voglio più né parlarne né sentirne parlare. […] Ritengo questa fine un'ingiustizia metafisica, un'ingiustizia nei confronti dello spirito. Una mancanza di fiducia nella Bontà eterna, una rivolta contro l'intimo dovere di obbedire alla legge universale. Chi si uccide, uccide e non solo se stesso, ma anche un altro essere. Perché l'uomo non è un'isola. Questa morte, ne sono profondamente convinto, non è una liberazione come quella naturale e incolpevole. Ogni violenza nel mondo ha delle conseguenze, come ogni azione. Esistiamo per prendere su di noi un po' del dolore del mondo offrendo il nostro petto, non per moltiplicarlo facendo a nostra volta violenza. So che lei soffre e io soffro con Lei. Sia indulgente con questo dolore, ed esso sarà indulgente con lei. I desideri e la collera lo accrescono; con la dolcezza esso si addormenta come un bambino. Lei è cosi ricca di amore, lo rivolga tutto agli esseri umani, ai bambini, alle cose e alle sue sofferenze. Non si chiuda nella solitudine, non voglia essere sola. Superi l'ostacolo, lo guardi negli occhi: non è nulla”.”
― Etty Hillesum, Diario 1941-1943

“De ene mens mag de andere nooit tot middelpunt van zijn leven maken.”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty: de nagelaten geschriften van Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

“Many who are indignant about injustices are only indignant because the injustices are being inflicted on them. Their indignation is skin-deep.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Pessimistische Depressionen sind als schöpferische Pausen zu betrachten, in denen sich die Kräfte wieder herstellen. Wenn man sich hiervon bewusst is, so werden die Depressionen schneller vorübergehen. Man sol sich niet deprimiert fühlen über eine Depression.”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty: de nagelaten geschriften van Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

“I myself am made up of so many people.”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork

“I still made a short detour to seek out a flower stall, and went home with a large bunch of roses. They are just as real as all the misery I witness each day.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Ik heb me enige onsterfelijke verdiensten aan de mensheid verworven: ik heb nooit een slecht boek geschreven en ik heb het niet op m'n geweten, dat er een ongelukkige méér op deze aarde rondloopt.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“I believe that I know and share the many sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them, I do not prolong such moments of agony. They pass through me, like life itself, as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream, and life continues. And as a result all my strength is preserved, does not become tagged onto futile sorrow or rebelliousness.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“J’ai reçu assez de dons intellectuels pour pouvoir tout sonder, tout aborder, tout saisir en formules claires ; on me croit supérieurement informée de bien des problèmes de la vie ; pourtant, là, tout au fond de moi, il y a une pelote agglutinée, quelque chose me retient dans une poigne de fer, et toute ma clarté de pensée ne m’empêche pas d’être bien souvent une pauvre godiche peureuse.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“Se anche non rimanesse che un solo tedesco decente, quest'unico tedesco meriterebbe di essere difeso contro quella banda di barbari, e grazie a lui non si avrebbe il diritto di riversare il proprio odio su un popolo intero. […] L'odio indiscriminato è una malattia dell'anima, odiare non è nel mio carattere.”
― Etty Hillesum, Diario 1941-1943

“Riassumendo vorrei in realtà dire: la barbarie nazista fa sorgere in noi un'identica barbarie che procederebbe con gli stessi metodi, se noi avessimo la possibilità di agire oggi come vorremmo. Dobbiamo respingere interiormente questa inciviltà, non possiamo coltivare in noi quell'odio perché altrimenti il mondo non uscirà di un solo passo dalla melma.”
― Etty Hillesum, Diario 1941-1943

“Se un uomo delle SS dovesse prendermi a calci fino alla morte io alzerei ancora gli occhi a guardarlo in viso, e mi chiederei, con un'esperessione di sbalordimento misto a paura, e per puro interesse nei confronti dell'umanità: Mio Dio, ragazzo, che cosa mai ti è capitato nella vita di tanto terribile da spingerti a simili azioni? Quando qualcuno mi rivolge parole di odio – e questo, in ogni caso, non succede spesso – non provo mai la tentazione di rispondere con l'odio, ma sprofondo improvvisamente nell'altro, in una sorta di disorientamento doloroso e al contempo interrogativo, e mi chiedo perché l'altro sia così, dimenticando me stessa.”
― Etty Hillesum, Diario 1941-1943

“Uma pessoa pode ficar morta de cansaço devido a uma longa caminhada, ou à espera numa bicha, mas isso também faz parte da vida e algures há algo dentro de ti que nunca vai abandonar-te”
― Etty Hillesum, Diário 1941- 1943

“Ik zou een héél boek willen schrijven over een kiezelsteen en over een paars viooltje. Ik zou met één enkele kiezelsteen heel lang kunnen leven en een gevoel kunnen hebben in Gods machtige natuur te leven.”
― Etty Hillesum, Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943