Dag Hammarskjold

Dag Hammarskjold

21 quotes

Recognized as an UN Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961, Dag Hammarskjold offered the world both action and articulate reflection. Their thinking spans from Peace to Death, revealing a mind that refused to stay in one lane. 24 of Dag Hammarskjold's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Peace, Death, Strength, History, and Truth. Start here and see if you agree: "Only he deserves power who every day justifies it."

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Friendship

All Quotes by Dag Hammarskjold

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Friendship

“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

Happiness

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

History

“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

God

“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 Hammarskjold

Alone

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Great

“Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.”

— Dag Hammarskjold

Death

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Fear

“In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.”

— Dag Hammarskjold

Death

“Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. a mystery not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning.”

— Dag Hammarskjold

History

“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

Peace

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Experience

“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

Forgiveness

“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

Truth

“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

Time

“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

Death

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Strength

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Nature

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

— Dag Hammarskjold

Peace

“Only he deserves power who every day justifies it.”

— Dag Hammarskjold

Power