Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the United Nations will only be effective when individuals take personal responsibility for it, rather than viewing it as an abstract concept.
Dag Hammarskjold emphasizes the importance of personal connection and responsibility to institutions such as the United Nations. He implies that when people begin to view these institutions as extensions of their own actions and choices, rather than distant abstractions or artworks, positive change and understanding will occur. This pivotal shift in perspective is crucial for collective progress and harmony.
Themes
United NationsResponsibilityPerspectiveChangeService
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a global leadership conference, one can quote this to emphasize the need for personal engagement in international cooperation.
More from Dag Hammarskjold
All quotes →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.
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Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.
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The world cannot live at peace without the United Nations. For this reason: it creates a reasonable guarantee that all this change in the world, these tremendous political and economic developments, can be channelized, kept orderly. The United Nations is a mold that keeps the hot metal from spilling over.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
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 HammarskjoldRead
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.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
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Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication. -Aunt Beast
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