Dag Hammarskjöld citáty

strana 2

„Nehledej smrt, smrt si tě najde. Ale hledej cestu, která činí ze smrti naplnění.“

„Každodenně se v životě musíme rozhodovat mezi utrpením lásky a nebo - v horším případě - utrpením bez lásky.“

„Je ctnostnější zasvětit život jedné osobě, než horlivě usilovat o spásu všech lidí.“

„Kdo nikdy netrpěl, neví jak utěšit.“

„Přátelství nepotřebuje slova - je to samota zbavená úzkosti ze samoty.“

„Je život tak bídný? Nebo jsou spíše vaše ruce malé a vaše vize příliš otupělá? Vy jste ten, kdo musí dospět.“

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

“Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.”

“The big, shoe-thumping fellow continues as a dark thunderhead to threaten all unrepentant non-Communists with hail and thunder.”

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

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

“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.”

“A man of firm convictions does not ask, and does not receive, understanding from those with whom he comes into conflict. … A mature man is his own judge. In the end, his only firm support is being faithful to his own convictions. The advice of others may be welcome and valuable, but it does not free him from responsibility. Therefore, he may become very lonely.”

“If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.”

“The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.”

“Creative people have to be fed from the divine source.”

“The myths have always condemned those who "looked back." Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision”

“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.”

“It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the "dark shade of courage" alone that the spell can be broken.”

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

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

“"To forgive oneself"—? No, that doesn't work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive.”

“Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.”

“It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics… so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted.”

“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 his right road.”

“I don't know Who — or what — put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — or Something — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

“You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization.”

“I believe that we should die with decency so that at least decency will survive.”

“There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.”

“To love life and men as God loves them —
for the sake of
their infinite possibilities,
to wait like Him,
to judge like Him,
without passing judgment,
to obey the order when it is given
and never look back.”

“In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions life puts to us … Hence too the necessity of preparing for it.”

“The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.”

“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.”