Quotes By Dag Hammarskjold

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

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

I am the vessel. The draft is God's. And God is the thirsty one.

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

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.

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

Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.

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.

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.

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.

Those who invoke history will certainly be heard by history. And they will have to accept its verdict.

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.

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

I never discuss discussions.

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

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.

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.

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

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

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.

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

The Assembly has witnessed over the last weeks how historical truth is established; once an allegation has been repeated a few times, it is no longer an allegation, it is an established fact, even if no evidence has been brought out in order to support it.

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.

Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.

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

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

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.

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