Dag Hammarskjold

Dag Hammarskjold was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. At the age of 47 years upon his appointment, Hammarskjold was the youngest to have held the post.

Additionally, he is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize and was the only United Nations Secretary-General to die while in office. He was killed in a Douglas DC-6 airplane crash en route to cease-fire negotiations. Hammarskjold has been referred to as one of the two best secretary-generals 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 Hammarskjold “the greatest statesman of our century”.

Date of birth:
29th July, 1905
Date of death:
18th September, 1961
"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
Topic(s): Time
"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
Topic(s): God
"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?"
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Strength
"Friendship needs no words – it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness."
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Friendship
"Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Nature
"Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions."
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Peace
"Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon."
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Good
"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
Topic(s): History
"Life only demands from you the strength that you possess. Only one feat is possible; not to run away."
― Dag Hammarskjold
Topic(s): Strength
"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
Topic(s): Peace

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