Quotes by Diarists - Page 2

Despite everything, I believe people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank
It's just that when you're standing beside an open window at twilight, you can say more toeach other than in bright sunshine. It's also easier to whisper your feelings than toshout them from the rooftops.
Anne Frank
Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.
Anne Frank
I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal, it is true, but, after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting…
Mary MacLane
Peter Wessel and Peter Van Daan have grown into one Peter, who is beloved and good, and for whom I long desperately.
Anne Frank
I'm sentimental--I know. I'm desperate and silly--I know that too. Oh, help me!
Anne Frank
To forget the past so easily seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever increasing collection of past selves- those dear, dead gentlemen who one after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and modestly to rest.
W.N.P. Barbellion
I am lithe, but fragile from constant involuntary self-analysis.
Mary MacLane
Suffering does not only insulate. It drops its victim in an ocean desert where he sees men as distant ships passing. I not only feel alone, but very far away from you all.
W.N.P. Barbellion
Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.
Anne Frank
No one has ever become poor by giving.
Anne Frank
How true Daddy's words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
The reason for my starting a diary is that I have no real friend.
Anne Frank
I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?
Anne Frank
One's thoughts are one's most crucial adventures. Seriously and strongly and intently to contemplate doing murder is everyway more exciting, more romantic, more profoundly tragic than the murder done.
Mary MacLane
Sometimes I'm so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again.
Anne Frank
At such times Daddy, Mummy and Margot leave me cold. I wander from one room to another, downstairs and up again, feeling like a songbird whose wings have been clipped and who is hurling himself in utter darkness against the bars of his cage. "Go outside, laugh, and take a breath of fresh air," a voice cries within me, but I don't even feel a response any more; I go and lie on the divan and sleep, to make the time pass more quickly, and the stillness and terrible fear, because there is no way of killing them.
Anne Frank
I'm currently in the middle of a depression. I couldn't really tell you what set it off, but I think it stems from my cowardice, which confronts me at every turn.
Anne Frank
If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly in hand before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.
Anne Frank
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
Anne Frank
How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day.
Anne Frank
I Don’t Know whether lust is a human coarseness or a human fineness: I don’t know why death holds a so sweet lure since it would take away my Body: I don’t know that I wouldn’t deny my Christ, if I had one, three times before a given cockcrow: I don’t know on the other hand that I would: I don’t know whether honor is a reality in human beings or a pose: I don’t know that I mayn’t be able to think with my Body when it is in its coffin.
Mary MacLane
Saturday 12 July 1823 [Halifax]Could not sleep last night. Dozing, hot & disturbed ... a violent longing for a female companion came over me. Never remember feeling it so painfully before ... It was absolute pain to me.
Anne Lister
Work, love, courage and hope,Make me good and help me cope!
Anne Frank
I'll show then that Anne Frank wasn't born yesterday
Anne Frank
I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.
Anne Frank
A voice within me is sobbing, "You see that's what's become of you. You're surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don't listen to the advice of your own better half." Believe me, I'd like to listen, but it doesn't work, because if I'm quiet and serious, everyone thinks I'm putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I'm not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and setatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can't keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, an finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I'd like to be and what I could be if . . . if only there were no other people in the world.Yours, Anne M. Frank.
Anne Frank
Strange, to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and wife gazing and smiling at them.
Samuel Pepys
The Diary of a Young Girl - This book fills you with sadness. I like this book
Anne Frank
I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer.
Anne Frank
But no matter how ferociously pitiable is the dried up graveyard, the sand and barrenness and the sluggish little stream have their own persistent individual damnation. The world is at least so constructed that its treasures may be damned each in a different manner and degree.
Mary MacLane
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
Anne Frank
As long as you're in the food business, why not make sweets?
Anne Frank
Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.
Anne Frank
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank
This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.
Anne Frank
Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
Anne Frank
May I never, I say, become that abnormal, merciless animal, that deformed monstrosity - a virtuous woman.
Mary MacLane
What I condemn are our system of values and the men who don't acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women's share in society is.
Anne Frank
I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There's in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, great wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.
Anne Frank
There's in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again
Anne Frank
Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.
John Evelyn
And it is in New York I have those strangest things of all: human friendships. Not many friendships and not of spent familiarities: for I don't like actual human beings too much around me. But yet friendships made of the edges of thoughts and vivid pathos and pregnant odds and ends of nervous human flesh and
Mary MacLane
The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer.
Anne Frank
Is idleness indeed so black a crime?What are the Busy doing, half their time?
William Allingham
Is idleness indeed so black a crime?What are the Busy doing, half their time?
William Allingham
When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells dashed around the foot of the Oak in front of us... I never knew before, the delight of offering oneself up; I even longed for some self sacrifice, to have to give up something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another happy...
W.N.P. Barbellion
I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.
Anne Frank
Up the airy mountain,Down the rushy glen,We daren't go a-huntingFor fear of little men.
William Allingham
By the craggy hill-side,Through the mosses bare,They have planted thorn-treesFor pleasure here and there.If any man so daringAs dig them up in spite,He shall find their sharpest thornsIn his bed at night.
William Allingham
It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
Anne Frank
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank
Riches can all be lost, but that happiness in your own heart can only be veiled, and it will bring you happiness again, as long as you live.
Anne Frank
Whoever is happy will make others happy.
Anne Frank
In youth audacity is wise
William Allingham
Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true. We do not know that God is not as cruel as a Spanish inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were shovelled into a furnace of fire- we should have to burn. There would be no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any one- even God.
W.N.P. Barbellion
The best remedy for those who are frightened, lovely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.
Anne Frank
Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we have to suffer now. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any country for that matter; we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.
Anne Frank
Crying can bring relief, as long as you don't cry alone.
Anne Frank
People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: "A quiet conscience mades one strong!
Anne Frank