Quotes About Adversity

but wait till it happens to you! The ack-ack guns make so much noise you can't hear your own voice.

begin with, will be used up too quickly and I won't have any left by the time the war is over. Yours

I'll have to become a good person on my own, without anyone to serve as a model or advise me, but it'll make me stronger in the end.

When I think about our lives here, I usually come to the conclusion that we live in a paradise compared to the Jews who aren't in hiding. All the same, later on, when everything has returned to normal, I'll probably wonder how we, who always lived in such comfortable circumstances, could have "sunk" so low.

Esto es algo que nunca debemos olvidar: mientras otros muestran su heroísmo en la guerra o frente a los alemanes, nuestros protectores lo hacen con su buen ánimo y el cariño que nos demuestran.

Tonight the guns have been banging away so much that I've already had to gather up my belongings four times. Today I packed a suitcase with the stuff I'd need in case we had to flee, but as Mother correctly noted, 'Where would you go?

Thursday, 5 August, 1943

It has reminded us that we are Jews, and that we must live like prisoners. We must forget our personal feelings and be brave and strong. One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews!

Man lernt die Menschen erst gut kennen, wenn man einmal richtigen Streit mit ihnen gehabt hat. Erst dann kann man ihren Charakter beurteilen!

It's a good thing I'm not the grouchy type, because then I might become sour and bad-tempered.

Believe me, if you've been shut up for a year and a half, it can get to be too much for you sometimes. But feelings can't be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.

The weak shall fall and the strong shall survive and not be defeated.

I've been drifting around at sea, have spent days searching for an effective antidote-1 to that terrible word easy. How can I make it clear to him that, while it may seem easy and wonderful, it will drag him down to the depths, to a place where he'll no longer find friends, support or beauty, so far down that he may never rise to the surface again?

Muß ich ein guter Mensch werden, ohne Vorbilder und ohne Reden, damit ich später besonders stark werde. (S.74)

Qué hay que hacer cuando uno se encuentra en la desgracia? ¡Salir de ella! Si no es así, uno está perdido. En cambio, juzgo que volviéndose hacia lo que es bello -la naturaleza, el sol, la libertad, lo hermoso que hay en nosotros-, nos sentimos enriquecidos.

Ich hingegen finde, dass noch bei jedem Kummer etwas Schones ubrigbleibt. Wenn man das betrachtet, entdeckt man immer mehr Freude, un man wird wieder ausgeglichen. Und wer glucklich ist, wird auch andere glucklich machen. Wer Mut und Vertrauen hat, wird im Ungluck nicht untergehen!

Thursday, 6 July, 1944 ... Quite honestly, I can't imagine how anyone can say: I'm weak, and then remain so. After all, if you know it, why not fight against it, why not try to train your character? The answer was: Because it's so much easier not to! This reply rather discouraged me. Easy? Does that mean that a lazy, deceitful life is an easy life? Oh no, that can't be true, it mustn't be true, people can so easily be tempted by slackness...and money.

Honestly, you needn't think it's easy to be the badly brought up central figure of a hypocritical family in hiding.

March 16, 1944 ...Kitty, Anne is crazy, but then these are crazy times and even crazier circumstances. March 17, 1944 Even though I'm only fourteen, I know what I want, I know who's right and who's wrong, I have my own opinions, ideas and principles, and though it may sound off coming from a teenager, I feel I'm more of a person than a child - I feel I'm completely independent of others.

Oh, when will we overcome all these difficulties? And yet it's good that we have to surmount them, since it makes the end that much more beautiful

It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.

Haters want us to hate them, because hate is incapacitating. When we hate, we can't operate from our real selves, which is our strength.

Into every life crap will fall. Most of us do as well as possible, and some of it works okay, and we try to release that which doesn't and which is never going to.

At this point, a reasonable person can't help thinking how grotesque life is. It can so suck, to use the theological term. It can be healthy to hate what life has given you, and to insist on being a big mess for a while. This takes great courage. But then, at some point, the better of two choices is to get back up on your feet and live again.