Dag Hammarskjold
Dag Hammarskjold
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author. The second secretary-general of the United Nations, he served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. At the age of 56 years and 255 days, Hammarskjöld was the youngest to have held the post. He is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize. Hammarskjöld is the only UN secretary-general to...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth29 July 1905
CountrySweden
forgiveness long debt
If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. They will make note of this and not remain in your debt long.
thinking achievement political
The Universal Declaration... as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations...it not only crystallizes the political thought of our times on these matters, but it has also influenced the thinking of legislators all over the world.
inspiration flower humility
Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell.
criticism praise standards
Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.
life sacrifice simple
Smiling, sincere, incorruptible - His body disciplined and limber. A man who had become what he could, And was what he was- Ready at any moment to gather everything Into one simple sacrifice.
morning husband dark
So rests the sky against the earth. The dark still tarn in the lap of the forest. As a husband embraces his wife's body in faithful tenderness, so the bare ground and trees are embraced by the still, high, light of the morning. I feel an ache of longing to share in this embrace, to be united and absorbed. A longing like carnal desire, but directed towards earth, water, sky, and returned by the whispers of the trees, the fragrance of the soil, the caresses of the wind, the embrace of water and light. Content? No, no, no - but refreshed, rested - while waiting.
self anchors greed
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*.
possibility unreal meetings
This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal.
nature fall light
The light died in the low clouds. Falling snow drank in the dusk. Shrouded in silence, the branches wrapped me in their peace. When the boundaries were erased, once again the wonder: that *I* exist.
long waiting faithful
It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us. That is why you are faithful to it, even while you stand waiting, so long as you are prepared, and act the moment you are confronted by its demands.
violence bitter killing
Acts of violence-- Whether on a large or a small scale, the bitter paradox: the meaningfulness of death--and the meaninglessness of killing.
strong light wind
Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course. Like light-- In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses. Like wind. Like light. Just this--on these expanses, on these heights.
dream real flames
You wake from dreams of doom and--for a moment--you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn.
rain fall dust
To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky.