Dag Hammarskjöld Short Quotes

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Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.

Dag Hammarskjöld
You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization.

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

Dag Hammarskjöld
It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy — from lack of character.

Dag Hammarskjöld
Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dag Hammarskjöld
What gives life its value you can find — and lose. But never possess. This holds good above all for "the Truth about Life."

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

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

Dag Hammarskjöld
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 Hammarskjöld
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 Hammarskjöld
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 Hammarskjöld
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.

Dag Hammarskjöld
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 his right road.

Dag Hammarskjöld
"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 Hammarskjöld
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.

Dag Hammarskjöld
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.

Dag Hammarskjöld