To live fully, outwardly and inwardly, not to ignore the external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse, that's quite a task
Interpretation
True fulfillment comes from balancing outward experiences with inner reflection.
Etty Hillesum's quote emphasizes the importance of living a balanced life, where one does not neglect the external world while pursuing inner growth and vice versa. It suggests that achieving this harmony is a challenging yet essential endeavor for a fulfilling existence.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a personal development workshop focused on mindfulness and living in the moment.
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.
The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
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.
It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen ... wonderful things.
I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany´s.
For it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence. Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Runnng through caverns of darkness.
I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his brief broken life came within mind's reach and made a whole again. He knew once more, at last, after this long, bitter, waisted time, who he was and where he was. But where he must go in the years to come, that he could not see; and he feared to see it.
Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time.
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