"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
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 ... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Boom, Corrie Ten. (2026, February 16). 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. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-look-at-the-world-youll-be-distressed-if-172849/
Chicago Style
Boom, Corrie Ten. "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." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-look-at-the-world-youll-be-distressed-if-172849/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"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." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-look-at-the-world-youll-be-distressed-if-172849/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.
