"If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest"
About this Quote
Ten Boom builds a three-step staircase out of modern anxiety: news, self, God. The line works because it’s bluntly diagnostic, almost like a street-corner triage for the soul. “Look at the world” names the obvious overwhelm: war, cruelty, the daily churn of bad headlines. “Look within” is the surprising twist. Introspection, usually sold as healing, becomes its own trap - not because self-knowledge is bad, but because solitary self-scrutiny can spiral into guilt, dread, and the sense that you’re not enough. The quote doesn’t flatter the listener; it assumes we’re porous to suffering and unreliable narrators of our own worth.
Then comes the hard pivot: “look at God” and “rest.” Not happiness, not victory - rest. That word is doing the heavy lifting, promising a place where the mind can finally stop litigating reality. It’s also a subtle argument about attention as moral practice. Ten Boom isn’t claiming the world is fine or the self is irrelevant; she’s ranking focal points, insisting that where you fix your gaze shapes your inner weather.
Context matters. Ten Boom survived the Nazi occupation, aided Jews, and endured a concentration camp. In that light, the quote reads less like pious avoidance and more like a field-tested method for staying human under horror. Its intent is pastoral and pragmatic: a small, repeatable ritual for refusing despair when neither politics nor psychology can guarantee relief.
Then comes the hard pivot: “look at God” and “rest.” Not happiness, not victory - rest. That word is doing the heavy lifting, promising a place where the mind can finally stop litigating reality. It’s also a subtle argument about attention as moral practice. Ten Boom isn’t claiming the world is fine or the self is irrelevant; she’s ranking focal points, insisting that where you fix your gaze shapes your inner weather.
Context matters. Ten Boom survived the Nazi occupation, aided Jews, and endured a concentration camp. In that light, the quote reads less like pious avoidance and more like a field-tested method for staying human under horror. Its intent is pastoral and pragmatic: a small, repeatable ritual for refusing despair when neither politics nor psychology can guarantee relief.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Later attribution: The Truest Thing about You (David Lomas, D. R. Jacobsen, 2014) modern compilationISBN: 9780781411271 · ID: smgVAgAAQBAJ
Evidence:
... Corrie ten Boom, who, along with her father, helped many Jews escape the Holocaust during World War II ... If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God, you'll be at rest ... |
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