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Ought We Not, From Time To Time, Open Ourselves Up To Cosmic Sadness? ... Give Your Sorrow All The Space And Shelter In Yourself That Is Its Due, For If Everyone Bears His Grief Honestly And Courageously, The Sorrow That Now Fills The World Will Abate. But If You Do Not Clear A Decent Shelter For Your Sorrow, And Instead Reserve Most Of The Space Inside You For Hatred And Thoughts Of Revenge-from Which New Sorrows Will Be Born For Others-then Sorrow Will Never Cease In This World And Will Multiply.

-Etty Hillesum

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Ought We Not, From

Etty Hillesum

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Ought We Not, From Time To Time, Open Ourselves Up To Cosmic Sadness? ... Give Your Sorrow All The Space And Shelter In Yourself That Is Its Due, For If Everyone Bears His Grief Honestly And Courageously, The Sorrow That Now Fills The World Will Abate. But If You Do Not Clear A Decent Shelter For Your Sorrow, And Instead Reserve Most Of The Space Inside You For Hatred And Thoughts Of Revenge-from Which New Sorrows Will Be Born For Others-then Sorrow Will Never Cease In This World And Will Multiply.

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Ought We Not, From Time To Time, Open Ourselves Up To Cosmic Sadness? ... Give Your Sorrow All The Space And Shelter In Yourself That Is Its Due, For If Everyone Bears His Grief Honestly And Courageously, The Sorrow That Now Fills The World Will Abate. But If You Do Not Clear A Decent Shelter For Your Sorrow, And Instead Reserve Most Of The Space Inside You For Hatred And Thoughts Of Revenge-from Which New Sorrows Will Be Born For Others-then Sorrow Will Never Cease In This World And Will Multiply.

I Would Be So Exhausted By My Determination That I Had No Strength Left To Do The Actual Work.

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.

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I Think What Weakens People Most Is Fear Of Wasting Their Strength.

If One Burdens The Future With One's Worries, It Cannot Grow Organically. I Am Filled With Confidence, Not That I Shall Succeed In Worldly Things, But That Even When Things Go Badly For Me I Shall Still Find Life Good And Worth Living.

And Now That I Don't Want To Own Anything Any More And Am Free, Now I Suddenly Own Everything, Now My Inner Riches Are Immeasurable.

By 'coming To Terms With Life' I Mean: The Reality Of Death Has Become A Definite Part Of My Life; My Life Has, So To Speak, Been Extended By Death, By My Looking Death In The Eye And Accepting It, By Accepting Destruction As Part Of Life And No Longer Wasting My Energies On Fear Of Death Or The Refusal To Acknowledge Its Inevitability. It Sounds Paradoxical: By Excluding Death From Our Life We Cannot Live A Full Life, And By Admitting Death Into Our Life We Enlarge And Enrich It.

That Fear Of Missing Out On Things Makes You Miss Out On Everything.

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Here, Beside This Great Black Surface That Is My Desk, I Feel As Though I Am On A Desert Island.

Such Words As 'god' And 'death' And 'suffering' And 'eternity' Are Best Forgotten. We Have To Become As Simple And As Wordless As The Growing Corn Or The Falling Rain. We Must Just Be.

It Is The Only Thing We Can Do. Each Of Us Must Turn Inward And Destroy In Himself All That He Thinks He Ought To Destroy In Others. And Remember That Every Atom Of Hate That We Add To This World Makes It Sill More Inhospitable

We Human Beings Cause Monstrous Conditions, But Precisely Because We Cause Them We Soon Learn To Adapt Ourselves To Them. Only If We Become Such That We Can No Longer Adapt Ourselves, Only If, Deep Inside, We Rebel Against Every Kind Of Evil, Will We Be Able To Put A Stop To It. ... While Everything Within Us Does Not Yet Scream Out In Protest, So Long Will We Find Ways Of Adapting Ourselves, And The Horrors Will Continue.

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