Etty Hillesum Quotes

Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.

Student: Sir, you said you must change the world. How can you change it, sir? Krishnamurti: What is the world? The world is where you live - your family, your friends, your neighbours. And your family, your friends, your neighbours can be extended and that is the world. Now, you are the centre of that world. That is the world you live in. Now how will you change the world? By changing yourself?

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Before someone can change his ideas, he has to open his heart.

I don't want to change the world; I want to evolve myself.

If you want to change the world - I do - you have to start with yourself.

What you are the world is. And without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world.

If we do not like what we see in the world, we must face what we don't like in ourselves. As we change, the world will change with us.

A lot of so-called Christian souls are not fine. People need to look inside themselves and look at the lives they're leading and fix themselves before they try to fix other people.

We can’t change the world. The only thing we can change is ourselves, by trying to get a better understanding of our own messed-up wiring.

In order to change the world, I guess a person would have to really get his head together first before he can say anything to the world, to change it.

He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor.

If you think the cause of your problem is 'out there,' you'll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut: solve it from within.

The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.

The only way to change the world is to change the main character of our story - the one we believe that we are. If we change the main character, if we respect ourselves, then just like magic, all the secondary characters will change. We can only give what we have, and if we don't respect ourselves, how can we respect others?

Lord, reform Thy world, beginning with me.

It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

you cannot hope for change in others, you can only work toward it in yourself. And that's hard work.

Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea.

Change in yourself what you want to change in the world.

My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place [cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison] taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never, therefore, make any progress.

In these simple words, Lord, is it I? lies the beginning of wisdom and the pathway to personal conversion and lasting change.

You don't need to change the world; you need to change yourself.

The message I'm sending to myself - I can't change the world until I change myself first.