I’ve always admired the quotes of Anne Frank, for several reasons. Firstly, even through translation her brevity and clarity are hard to match in any form of literature I’ve ever read. The quote “I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out“, particularly resonates with me, after all, time is toughest test of all, and I'm slowly learning the lesson that Anne conveys here.
Another reason for admiring her writing is the context. Remember that she wrote into a diary, that to all extents should have been destroyed, there was certainly no way she could have know anyone else would read it. This means that much of what she writes is completely untainted by any human emotion, its sincerity is deafening, this is backed further by the line “I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.” (In fact she wrote several times in her diary that no-one was ever to read her thoughts.)
Finally, reading some of the quotes you will see that Anne has some amazing qualities, simply astounding when you think of the facts. She says “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” . Putting this in the context of Nazi Germany potentially the most evil regime the modern world has ever seen, certainly make me think of the qualities she possessed that I clearly lack.
Anne Frank was a 15 years old when she died of typhus at Belsen concentration camp.