Dag Hammarskjold Quotes

• It was when Lucifer first congratulated himself upon his angelic behavior that he became the tool of evil.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  2241

• Acts of violence-- Whether on a large or a small scale, the bitter paradox: the meaningfulness of death--and the meaninglessness of killing.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4423

• This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  1906

• Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  UN Press Release SG/360, December 22, 1953.

  226

• The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1963.

  2564

• You dare your Yes - and experience a meaning...You repeat your Yes - and all things acquire a meaning...When everything has a meaning, how can you live anything but a YES.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  3198

• Respect for the word - to employ it with scrupulous care and in incorruptible heartfelt love of truth - is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1964.

  2751

• You take the pen, and the lines dance. You take the flute and the notes shimmer. You take the brush, and the colors sing. So all things have meaning and beauty in that space beyond time where you are. How, then, can I hold back anything from you?

  Dag Hammarskjold

  1694

• Only one feat is possible: not to have run away.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1963.

  2302

• So rests the sky against the earth. The dark still tarn in the lap of the forest. As a husband embraces his wife's body in faithful tenderness, so the bare ground and trees are embraced by the still, high, light of the morning. I feel an ache of longing to share in this embrace, to be united and absorbed. A longing like carnal desire, but directed towards earth, water, sky, and returned by the whispers of the trees, the fragrance of the soil, the caresses of the wind, the embrace of water and light. Content? No, no, no - but refreshed, rested - while waiting.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4648

• Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations". Book by James Beasley Simpson, 1988.

  3676

• When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles give under the strain, the climb seems endless, and suddenly nothing will go quite as you wish it is then that you must not hesitate.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4383

• Be grateful as your deeds become less and less associated with your name, as your feet ever more lightly tread the earth.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4592

• I don't know Who, or what, put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone, or Something,and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Markings (1964)

  1043

• Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  2627

• We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  1548

• Better than other people.' Sometimes he says: 'That, at least, you are.' But more often: 'Why should you be? Either you are what you can be, or you are not - like other people.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  5140

• Smiling, sincere, incorruptible - His body disciplined and limber. A man who had become what he could, And was what he was- Ready at any moment to gather everything Into one simple sacrifice.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  409

• Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back. It must be held out empty - for the past must only be reflected in its polish, its shape, its capacity.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4856

• Each day the first day: Each day a life.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4299

• A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1964.

  448

• When you have reached the point where you no longer expect a response, you will at last be able to give in such a way that the other is able to receive, and be grateful. When Love has matured and, through a dissolution of the self into light, become a radiance, then shall the Lover be liberated from dependence upon the Beloved, and the Beloved also be made perfect by being liberated from the Lover.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  3254

• To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place. In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4939

• Set-backs in efforts to implement an ideal do not prove that the ideal is wrong...

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Servant of Peace: A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations 1953-1961". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1962.

  227

• Maturity - among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1963.

  4822

• You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds

  Dag Hammarskjold

  407

• Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1963.

  1363

• Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  4789

• Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  UN Press Release SG/360, December 22, 1953.

  3930

• At some moment I did answer "Yes" to someone or something. And from that hour on I was certain that existence is meaningful.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Markings (1964)

  2772

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