Dag Hammarskjöld Quotes

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.

At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose *your* self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's. But in one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one — which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your *I*.

For all that has been,
Thank you.
For all that is to come,
Yes!

You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization.

No cracking of the whip of words
disturbed his peace
in a space that sung.

Doffing the ego's
safe glory, he finds
his naked reality.

The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body's total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?

He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.

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

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.

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

A man of firm convictions does not ask, and does not receive, understanding from those with whom he comes into conflict. … A mature man is his own judge. In the end, his only firm support is being faithful to his own convictions. The advice of others may be welcome and valuable, but it does not free him from responsibility. Therefore, he may become very lonely.

The big, shoe-thumping fellow continues as a dark thunderhead to threaten all unrepentant non-Communists with hail and thunder.

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.

Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.