Top 100 Dag Hammarskjöld Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes!”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

3. “The longest journey is the journey inward.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

4. “The UN wasn’t created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

6. “If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

7. “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

8. “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

9. “Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, but only soldiers can do it.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

10. “Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

11. “You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

12. “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 Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

14. “It is playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

15. “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 the right road.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

16. “He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

17. “Life yields only to the conqueror.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

18. “Do not look back and do not dream about the future. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward, your destiny, is in the present moment.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

20. “Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back. It must be held out empty – for the past must only be reflected in its polish, its shape, its capacity.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

21. “When the morning’s freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles give under the strain, the climb seems endless, and suddenly nothing will go quite as you wish it is then that you must not hesitate.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

22. “Perhaps a great love is never returned. Had it been given warmth and shelter by its counterpart in the Other, perhaps it would have been hindered from ever growing to maturity. It “gives” us nothing. But in its world of loneliness it leads us up to the summits with wide vistas – of great insights.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

24. “Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each of us.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

25. “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.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

26. “Perhaps a great love is never returned.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

27. “Forgiving is forgetting, in spite of remembering.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

28. “You take the pen, and the lines dance. You take the flute and the notes shimmer. You take the brush, and the colors sing. So all things have meaning and beauty in that space beyond time where you are. How, then, can I hold back anything from you?”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

29. “What you must dare: is to be yourself.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

30. “We’ve got to learn hard things in our lifetime, but it’s love that gives you the strength. It’s being nice to people and having a lot of fun and laughing harder than anything, hopefully every single day of your life.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

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

— Dag Hammarskjöld

32. “This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

33. “We all have within us a center of stillness surrounded by silence.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

34. “It was when Lucifer first congratulated himself upon his angelic behavior that he became the tool of evil.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

35. “At some moment I did answer “Yes” to someone or something. And from that hour on I was certain that existence is meaningful.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

36. “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.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

37. “Be grateful as your deeds become less and less associated with your name, as your feet ever more lightly tread the earth.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

38. “Here man is no longer the center of the world, only a witness, but a witness who is also a partner in the silent life of Nature, bound by secret affinities of the trees.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

39. “Only one feat is possible: not to have run away.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

40. “In a dream I walked with God through the deep places of creation; past walls that receded and gates that opened through hall after hall of silence, darkness and refreshment – the dwelling place of souls acquainted with light and warmth – until, around me, was an infinity into which we all flowed together and lived anew, like the rings made by raindrops falling upon wide expanses of calm dark waters.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

41. “Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

42. “The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

43. “I am the vessel. The draft is God’s. And God is the thirsty one.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

44. “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.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

45. “The concept of loyalty is distorted when it is understood to mean blind acceptance. It is correctly interpreted when it is assumed to cover honest criticism.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

46. “The devils enter uninvited when the house stands empty. For other kinds of guests, you have to first open the door.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

47. “In the presence of God, nothing stands between Him and us – we are forgiven. But we cannot feel His presence if anything is allowed to stand between ourselves and others.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

48. “Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

49. “Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

50. “Like the bee, we distill poison from honey for our self-defense – what happens to the bee if it uses its sting is well known.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld