Thursday, November 03, 2016

we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others

-- Etty Hillesum, from Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork, p. 218

Quote in context

29 September. You often said, "This is a sin against the spirit, it will be avenged." Every sin against the spirit will be avenged, in man himself and in the world outside. 
Let me just note down one more thing for myself: Matthew 6:34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies. We make mental provision for the days to come, and everything turns out differently, quite differently. Sufficient unto the day. The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God. Everything will turn out all right with my residence permit and with my ration book; right now there's no point in brooding about it, and I would do much better to write a Russian essay. Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world