Dag Hammarskjold quotes

Dag Hammarskjold was a Swedish diplomat and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Known for his deep commitment to peace and diplomacy, Hammarskjold's leadership played a pivotal role in shaping global affairs during the 1950s and 1960s. With a visionary approach, he strived to strengthen the UN's peacekeeping operations and resolve conflicts peacefully. Hammarskjold's unwavering dedication to promoting dialogue and fostering international cooperation earned him immense respect worldwide. Tragically, he lost his life in a plane crash while on a peacekeeping mission in 1961. Despite his untimely demise, Hammarskjold's legacy endures as an inspiration for leaders working towards a more peaceful and inclusive world. Learn more about this remarkable statesman and his contributions to global diplomacy.

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- 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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy - from lack of character.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

I never discuss discussions.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

"Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

Only he deserves power who every day justifies it.

- Dag Hammarskjold

Time always seems long to the child who is waiting - for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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.

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Dag Hammarskjold