“And you must be able to bear your sorrow; even if it seems to crush you, you will be able to stand up again, for human beings are so strong, and your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself; you mustn’t run away from it but bear it like an adult. Do not relieve your feelings of hatred, do not seek to be avenged… Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate. But if you do 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 if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich. So beautiful and so rich that it makes you want to believe in God.”
―Etty Hillesum, “Saturday morning, ten o’clock”, in An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork, p. 96
