Etty Hillesum Quotes

I've had very deep moments of sadness. What I do is really sob, really cry, do whatever it is, and then kind of release it. Then I can go cook dinner or make a phone call to a friend.

Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.

Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.

Sadness isn't a natural response.

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive state of mind; Praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; Joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live? Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.

Everybody who undergoes a death and finds themselves grieving is obsessed with — or maybe overly focused on — the idea that they can’t display self-pity, they have to be strong. Actually there are a lot of reasons why you are going to feel sorry for yourself, but that’s your first concern.

True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same.

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart

After a while, though, even the deepest sorrow faltered, even the most penetrating despair lost its scalpel edge.

Or maybe we'll make a home somewhere inside ourselves, to carry with us wherever we go- which is the way I carry my mother now.

What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.

You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.

Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows.

Could I love less, I should be happier now.

Joy lives concealed in grief.

I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.

I do not believe that grief is ever so great that it can not be contained within.

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; for grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.

No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a king's voice... whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give.

There are many stages of grief. It's sad, something coming to an end. It cracks you open, in a way -- cracks you open to feeling. When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain. I'm a human being, having a human experience in front of the world. I wish it weren't in front of the world. I try really hard to rise above it.

Edward's grief if you die will be a terrible thing. It will hurt him, a lot, and men like him never grieve alone. He will spread his grief all over us, not because we failed, but because it'll give him something to focus on so he doesn't have to feel the pain.

For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn.