“Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.”

“And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.”

“Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.”

“Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”

“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!”

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.”

“I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”

“I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”

“I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.”

“I live in a crazy time.”

“I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”

“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”

“I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think... peace and tranquillity will return again.”

“If I haven't any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.”

“I'm afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I'm afraid they'll mock me, think I'm ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I'm used to not being taken seriously, but only the 'light-hearted' Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the 'deeper' Anne is too weak.”

“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.”

“Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”

“The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.”

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

“Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?”

“Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that 'a quiet conscience makes one strong!'”

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”