Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld is the youngest person to have held the post; he was 47 years old when appointed. His second term was cut short when he died in the crash of his DC-6 airplane in Northern Rhodesia while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis. He is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize.Hammarskjöld has been referred to as one of the two best secretaries-general of the United Nations, and his appointment has been mentioned as the most notable success for the UN. United States President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century." Wikipedia
“Friendship needs no words — it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.”
Variant translation: Friendship needs no words — it is a loneliness relieved of the anguish of loneliness.
Markings (1964)
“For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.”
Variant translation: For all that has been — thanks. For all that will be — yes.
Markings (1964)
Markings (1964)
Context: You are not the oil, you are not the air — merely the point of combustion, the flash-point where the light is born. You are merely the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency — your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end and remain purely as a means.
“The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law.”
Statement inspired by the work of British sculptor Barbara Hepworth, quoted in The Christian Science Monitor (18 Jun 1964)
Context: 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?
As quoted in Know Your Limits — Then Ignore Them (2000) by John Mason
"1925-1930" http://books.google.com/books?id=Zvi195aKdvMC&q=%22Life+only+demands+from+you+the+strength+you+possess+Only+one+feat+is+possible+not+to+have+run+away%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage
Markings (1964)
Markings (1964)
Context: 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.
"An International Administrative Service", From an Address to the International Law Association at McGill University, Montreal, 30 May, 1956. Wilder Foote (Ed.), The Servant of Peace, A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, The Bodley Head, London 1962, p. 116.
Context: Do we refer to the purposes of the Charter? They are expressions of universally shared ideals which cannot fail us, though we, alas, often fail them. Or do we think of the institutions of the United Nations? They are our tools. We fashioned them. We use them. It is our responsibility to remedy any flaws there may be in them.... This is a difficult lesson for both idealists and realists, though for different reasons. I suppose that, just as the first temptation of the realist is the illusion of cynicism, so the first temptation of the idealist is the illusion of Utopia.
“The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real.”
As quoted in The Times [London] (27 June 1955)
Context: The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real. The day will come when men will see the UN and what it means clearly. Everything will be all right — you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction, and see it as a drawing they made themselves.
“Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.”
Markings (1964)
Context: 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.
Markings (1964)
Context: Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity — intellectual, emotional, and moral.
Respect for the word — to employ it with scrupulous care and in incorruptible heartfelt love of truth — is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race.
To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution.
"But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak..."
Statement to the General Assembly of the United Nations (3 October 1960)
Context: It is not the Soviet Union or indeed any other big Powers who need the United Nations for their protection. It is all the others. In this sense, the Organization is first of all their Organization and I deeply believe in the wisdom with which they will be able to use it and guide it. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the Organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so. In this context the representative of the Soviet Union spoke of courage. It is very easy to resign; it is not so easy to stay on. It is very easy to bow to the wish of a big power. It is another matter to resist. As is well known to all Members of this Assembly, I have done so before on many occasions and in many directions. If it is the wish of those nations who see in the Organization their best protection in the present world, I shall now do so again.
UN Press Release SG/360 (22 December 1953)
Context: Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we are not free in our own minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so?... Only in true surrender to the interest of all can we reach that strength and independence, that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to measure up to our duty to the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance was given to build in time a world of peace.
On accusations by Nikita Khrushchev, as quoted in The Times [London] (4 October 1960)
United Nations Bulletin Vol. XVI, No. 4 (15 February 1954)
“Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault.”
As quoted by Rolf Edberg, Swedish Ambassador to Norway, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Hammarskjöld in Oslo, Norway (10 December 1961) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1961/hammarskjold-acceptance.html
Variant translation: The longest journey is the journey inward, for he who has chosen his destiny has started upon his quest for the source of his being.
Markings (1964)
“I never discuss discussions.”
Statement after diplomatic talks, as quoted in Look (19 September 1956)
"1925-1930" http://books.google.com/books?id=Zvi195aKdvMC&q=%22Never+measure+the+height+of+a+mountain+until+you+have+reached+the+top+then+you+will+see+how+low+it+was%22&pg=PA3#v=onepage
Markings (1964)
On Nikita Khrushchev as quoted in The Times [London] (4 October 1960)
Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=HhHr0IIUDKkC&q=%22Freedom+from+fear%22+%22In+a+political+context+of+the+utmost+significance+this+clause+recognizes+a+human+right+which+in+a+broad+sense+may+be+said+to+sum+up+the+whole+philosophy+of+human+rights%22&pg=PA141#v=onepage at the celebration of the 180th anniversary of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (16 May 1956)
On Nikita Kruschev, in a letter to a friend, as quoted in Hammarskjöld (1972) by Brian Urquhart
As quoted in Sacred Seasonings (2003) by Sherri Purdom
Address to the Swedish Academy (20 December 1954)
As quoted in As I Journey On : Meditations for Those Facing Death (2000) by Sharon Dardis and Cindy Rogers
“Creative people have to be fed from the divine source.”
Johnny Cash, in an interview for The Academy of Achievement (25 June 1993) http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/cas0int-3
Misattributed
Servant of Peace : A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations (1962), p. 107; this has sometimes been paraphrased: It is in playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.
“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”
As quoted in news reports (18 March 1956) and Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson
As quoted in Living in Grace : The Shift to Spiritual Perception (2002) by Beca Lewis, p. 158
In a letter to a friend, as quoted in Hammarskjöld (1972) by Brian Urquhart
Markings (1964)
“You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization.”
Statement on UN Operations in Congo before the General Assembly, 17 October 1960.
“The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.”
William Hazlitt, in The Spirit of the Age (1825)
Misattributed
"An International Administrative Service", From an Address to the International Law Association at McGill University, Montreal, 30 May, 1956. Wilder Foote (Ed.), The Servant of Peace, A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, The Bodley Head, London 1962, p. 116.
