Etty Hillesum Quotes

You're never given more pain than you can handle. You never, ever get more than you can take.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

As long as one suffers one lives.

Life was brutal and it made victims of everyone.’ (Nykyrian)

Don’t worry about me handling the pain," I say. "I’ve had a lot of practice.

No matter how hard it rains, withstand the pain.

Nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you in half and keep on going until you get to the other side.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

The thing that matters is not what you bear, but how you bear it

Trouble and pain were what kept a man alive. Or trying to avoid trouble and pain. It was a full time job.

My life would never contain a convenient, pain-saving plan when it could stretch a problem out into an endless agony of uncertainty and torture.

It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.

We're not the only people that have had to suffer, there have always been people that've had to.

... no matter how one's heart aches, one can do the necessary things and do them well.

The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

We can take suffering to be an opportunity to learn and to grow. But if we are honest, we should remember that this is making the best of a bad job, and that minimising suffering takes priority over optimising its outcome.

I've gone through hell and back.

Life's fairly excruciating. Painful things happen. Every now and then, you drag yourself out of the stream and stand on the bank gasping for air. I think that's how I work.

I've been through cancer, divorce, loss and bereavement, but they are things most humans go through.

Wounds turn into scars and scars make you tough.

I think everybody has their pain. For me, the time that I really had to grow up was when I was 15 and I had my best friend die of leukemia. Watching somebody so strong go through that is definitely something that will give you a little bit of depth. There have been a lot of things that have happened in my life that has forced me to grow up.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

I had to fight; I had to fall, and I had to get hurt to be where I am.

I've been through worst, seen worst.