Dag Hammarskjold's Quotes

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

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

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

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

Dag Hammarskjold

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

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

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

Dag Hammarskjold

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

Dag Hammarskjold

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?

Dag Hammarskjold

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

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

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions.

Dag Hammarskjold