Quotes by Hammarskjold, Dag

"We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours."

Hammarskjold, Dag on destiny
7 fans of this quote   

"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."

Hammarskjold, Dag on enlightenment   

"Fatigue dulls the pain, but awakes enticing thoughts of death. So! that is the way in which you are tempted to overcome your loneliness -- by making the ultimate escape from life. -- No! It may be that death is to be your ultimate gift to life: it must not be an act of treachery against it."

Hammarskjold, Dag on fatigue   

"To forgive oneself? No, that doesn't work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive."

Hammarskjold, Dag on forgiveness   

"Every deed and every relationship is surrounded by an atmosphere of silence. Friendship needs no words -- it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness."

Hammarskjold, Dag on friends and friendship   

"Friendship needs no words..."

Hammarskjold, Dag on friends and friendship
14 fans of this quote   

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only those who keep their eye fixed on the far horizon will find their right road."

Hammarskjold, Dag on goals   

"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."

Hammarskjold, Dag on integrity
3 fans of this quote   

"It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."

Hammarskjold, Dag on approval   

"What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear."

Hammarskjold, Dag on loneliness
6 fans of this quote   

"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."

Hammarskjold, Dag on maturity   

"Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions."

Hammarskjold, Dag on peace
4 fans of this quote   

"The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned."

Hammarskjold, Dag on peace   

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."

Hammarskjold, Dag on possibilities
4 fans of this quote   

"Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them."

Hammarskjold, Dag on prayer   

"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."

Hammarskjold, Dag on procrastination
4 fans of this quote   

"The longest journey is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest for the source of his being."

Hammarskjold, Dag on purpose
4 fans of this quote   

"Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for."

Hammarskjold, Dag on purpose
12 fans of this quote   

"Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines."

Hammarskjold, Dag on reputation   

"The myths have always condemned those who looked back. Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision."

Hammarskjold, Dag on respectability   

"It is playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity."

Hammarskjold, Dag on risk
5 fans of this quote   

"The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside."

Hammarskjold, Dag on self-talk
5 fans of this quote   

"In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action."

Hammarskjold, Dag on action   

"The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real. The day will come when men will see the U.N. and what it means clearly. Everything will be all right -- you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction, and see it as a drawing they made themselves."

Hammarskjold, Dag on nations   

"Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy."

Hammarskjold, Dag on conquest   

"Life only demands from you the strength that you possess. Only one feat is possible; not to run away."

Hammarskjold, Dag on courage   

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

Hammarskjold, Dag on criticism   

"In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions life puts to us."

Hammarskjold, Dag on death   

"If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party."

Hammarskjold, Dag on death   

"Your body must become familiar with its death -- in all its possible forms and degrees -- as a self-evident, imminent, and emotionally neutral step on the way towards the goal you have found worthy of your life."

Hammarskjold, Dag on death   

"It is not the Soviet Union or indeed any other big Powers who need the United Nations for their protection. It is all the others. In this sense, the Organization is first of all their Organization and I deeply believe in the wisdom with which they will be able to use it and guide it. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the Organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so. "

Hammarskjold, Dag on uncategorised