Welcome to our collection of quotes by Dag Hammarskjöld. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( HAM-ər-shuuld, Swedish: [ˈdɑːɡ ˈhâmːarˌɧœld] (listen); 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. As of 2021, he remains the youngest person to have held the post, having been only 47 years old when he was appointed.
Hammarskjöld's tenure was characterized by efforts to strengthen the newly formed UN both internally and externally. He led initiatives to improve morale and organisational efficiency while seeking to make the UN more responsive to global issues. He presided over the creation of the first UN peacekeeping forces in Egypt and the Congo and personally intervened to defuse or resolve diplomatic crises. Hammarskjöld's second term was cut short when he died in a plane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis.
Hammarskjöld was and remains well regarded internationally as a capable diplomat and administrator, and his efforts to resolve various global crises led to him being the only posthumous recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He is considered one of the two best UN secretaries-general, along with his successor U Thant, and his appointment has been hailed as one of the most notable successes for the organization. U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century."
Trees quiver in the wind,
sailing on a sea of mist
out of earshot.
Apes. The moon woke them --
round the world's navel revolved
prayer wheels of steps.
His moral lecture
blazed with hate.
What could have driven a child that far?
The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.
Better than other people.' Sometimes he says: 'That, at least, you are.' But more often: 'Why should you be? Either you are what you can be, or you are not -- like other people.
No cracking of the whip of words
disturbed his peace
in a space that sung.
My home drove me
into the wilderness.
Few look for me. Few hear me.
Beneath the hush a whisper from long ago, promising peace of mind and a burden shared.
No peace which is not peace for all, no rest until all has been fulfilled.
He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.
Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell.
Doffing the ego's
safe glory, he finds
his naked reality.
This accidental
meeting of possibilities
calls itself I.
I ask: what am I doing here?
And, at once, this I
becomes unreal.
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.