Dag Hammarskjöld Quotes

Swedish diplomat, economist, and author (1905-1961)

Dag Hammarskjöld (29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, the second United Nations Secretary-General, and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He oversaw U.N. responses to Cold War crises, the decolonization of Africa, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He was killed in a plane crash while attempting to mediate the Congo Crisis.

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Alternative Names: Da gHjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld • Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld

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

In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions life puts to us … Hence too the necessity of preparing for it.

In the faith which is "God's marriage to the soul", you are one in God, and God is wholly in you, just as, for you, He is wholly in all you meet. With this faith, in prayer you descend into yourself to meet the other.

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

I believe that we should die with decency so that at least decency will survive.

He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the Way ends on the Cross — even when it is leading him through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.

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 again made clean.

For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.

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

Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. A mystery not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning.

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.

Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee. A humble heart that I may hear Thee, A heart of love that I may serve Thee, A heart of faith that I may abide in Thee.

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

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

It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics... so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted.