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So Rests The Sky Against The Earth. The Dark Still Tarn In The Lap Of The Forest. As A Husband Embraces His Wife's Body In Faithful Tenderness, So The Bare Ground And Trees Are Embraced By The Still, High, Light Of The Morning. I Feel An Ache Of Longing To Share In This Embrace, To Be United And Absorbed. A Longing Like Carnal Desire, But Directed Towards Earth, Water, Sky, And Returned By The Whispers Of The Trees, The Fragrance Of The Soil, The Caresses Of The Wind, The Embrace Of Water And Light. Content? No, No, No - But Refreshed, Rested - While Waiting.

-Dag Hammarskjold

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So Rests The Sky

Dag Hammarskjold

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So Rests The Sky Against The Earth. The Dark Still Tarn In The Lap Of The Forest. As A Husband Embraces His Wife's Body In Faithful Tenderness, So The Bare Ground And Trees Are Embraced By The Still, High, Light Of The Morning. I Feel An Ache Of Longing To Share In This Embrace, To Be United And Absorbed. A Longing Like Carnal Desire, But Directed Towards Earth, Water, Sky, And Returned By The Whispers Of The Trees, The Fragrance Of The Soil, The Caresses Of The Wind, The Embrace Of Water And Light. Content? No, No, No - But Refreshed, Rested - While Waiting.

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Never Measure The Height Of A Mountain Until You Have Reached The Top. Then You Will See How Low It Was.

When The Sense Of The Earth Unites With The Sense Of One's Body, One Becomes Earth Of The Earth, A Plant Among Plants, An Animal Born From The Soil And Fertilizing It. In This Union, The Body Is Confirmed In Its Pantheism.

The Longest Journeyis The Journey Inwards.of Him Who Has Chosen His Destiny, Who Has Started Upon His Quest For The Source Of His Being.

Acts Of Violence-- Whether On A Large Or A Small Scale, The Bitter Paradox: The Meaningfulness Of Death--and The Meaninglessness Of Killing.

Do Not Seek Death. Death Will Find You.

Fulfillment In Life

On The Bookshelf Of Life, God Is A Useful Work Of Reference, Always At Hand But Seldom Consulted.

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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.

It Is More Noble To Give Yourself Completely To One Individual Than To Labor Diligently For The Salvation Of The Masses.

Do Not Seek Death. Death Will Find You. But Seek The Road Which Makes Death A Fulfillment.

The Assembly Has Witnessed Over The Last Weeks How Historical Truth Is Established; Once An Allegation Has Been Repeated A Few Times, It Is No Longer An Allegation, It Is An Established Fact, Even If No Evidence Has Been Brought Out In Order To Support It.

In The Last Analysis, It Is Our Conception Of Death Which Decides Our Answers To All The Questions That Life Puts To Us.

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.

The Only Kind Of Dignity Which Is Genuine Is That Which Is Not Diminished By The Indifference Of Others.

Eating Disorder

When You Have Reached The Point Where You No Longer Expect A Response, You Will At Last Be Able To Give In Such A Way That The Other Is Able To Receive, And Be Grateful. When Love Has Matured And, Through A Dissolution Of The Self Into Light, Become A Radiance, Then Shall The Lover Be Liberated From Dependence Upon The Beloved, And The Beloved Also Be Made Perfect By Being Liberated From The Lover.

It Is Not The Repeated Mistakes, The Long Succession Of Petty Betrayals--though, God Knows, They Would Give Cause Enough For Anxiety And Self-contempt--but The Huge Elementary Mistake, The Betrayal Of That Within Me Which Is Greater Than I--in Complacent Adjustment To Alien Demands.

The Un Wasn't Created To Take Mankind Into Paradise, But Rather, To Save Humanity From Hell.

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.

Respect For The Word - To Employ It With Scrupulous Care And In Incorruptible Heartfelt Love Of Truth - Is Essential If There Is To Be Any Growth In A Society Or In The Human Race. To Misuse The Word Is To Show Contempt For Man. It Undermines The Bridges And Poisons The Wells. It Causes Man To Regress Down The Long Path Of His Evolution.

In A Political Context Of The Utmost Significance, ["freedom From Fear"] Recognizes A Human Right Which, In A Broad Sense, May Be Said To Sum Up The Whole Philosophy Of Human Rights.

Time Goes By, Reputation Increases, Ability Declines.

Isn't The Fulfillment Of Our Duty Towards Our Neighbor An Expression Of Deepest Desire?

The Big, Shoe-thumping Fellow Continues As A Dark Thunderhead To Threaten All Unrepentant Non-communists With Hail And Thunder.

For All That Has Been, Thank You. For All That Is To Come, Yes!

Life Yields Only To The Conqueror.

Your Body Must Become Familiar With Its Death - In All Its Possible Forms And Degrees - As A Self-evident, Imminent, And Emotionally Neutral Step On The Way Towards The Goal You Have Found Worthy Of Your Life.

You Dare Your Yes - And Experience A Meaning...you Repeat Your Yes - And All Things Acquire A Meaning...when Everything Has A Meaning, How Can You Live Anything But A Yes.

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.

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.

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?

Our Work For Peace Must Begin Within The Private World Of Each One Of Us.

It Is Playing Safe That We Create A World Of Utmost Insecurity.

Humility Is Just As Much The Opposite Of Self-abasement As It Is Of Self-exaltation.

I Have Only My Own Burden To Bear.

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You Wake From Dreams Of Doom And--for A Moment--you Know: Beyond All The Noise And The Gestures, The Only Real Thing, Love's Calm Unwavering Flame In The Half-light Of An Early Dawn.

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Presence Of God

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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.

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Forgiving Is Forgetting, In Spite Of Remembering.

We Are Not Permitted To Choose The Frame Of Our Destiny. But What We Put Into It Is Ours.

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Each Day The First Day: Each Day A Life.

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Friendship Needs No Words - It Is Solitude Delivered From The Anguish Of Loneliness.

To Reach Perfection, We Must All Pass, One By One, Through The Death Of Self-effacement.

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Constant Attention By A Good Nurse May Be Just As Important As A Major Operation By A Surgeon.

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The Longest Journey Is The Journey Inward.

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A Task Becomes A Duty From The Moment You Suspect It To Be An Essential Part Of That Integrity Which Alone Entitles A Man To Assume Responsibility.

The 'great' Commitment Is So Much Easier Than The Ordinary Everyday One.

Praise Those Of Your Critics For Whom Nothing Is Up To Standard.

Unless There Is A Spiritual Renaissance, The World Will Know No Peace.

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It Was When Lucifer First Congratulated Himself Upon His Angelic Behavior That He Became The Tool Of Evil.

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.

Be Grateful As Your Deeds Become Less And Less Associated With Your Name, As Your Feet Ever More Lightly Tread The Earth.

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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.

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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.

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?

For The Sacrificed, In The Hour Of Sacrifice, Only One Thing Counts: Faith-alone Among Enemies And Skeptics. Faith, In Spite Of The Humiliation Which Is Both The Necessary Precondition And The Consequence Of Faith, Faith Without Any Hope Of Compensation Other Than He Can Find In A Faith Which Reality Seems So Thoroughly To Refute.

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.

If Even Dying Is To Be Made A Social Function, Then, Grant Me The Favor Of Sneaking Out On Tiptoe Without Disturbing The Party.

What Makes Loneliness An Anguish Is Not That I Have No One To Share My Burden, But This: I Have Only My Own Burden To Bear.

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

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.

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.

Friendship Needs No Words.

If Only I May Grow: Firmer, Simpler, Quieter, Warmer.

Peacekeeping Is Not A Job For Soldiers, But Only Soldiers Can Do It.

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.

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

Your Cravings As A Human Animal Do Not Become A Prayer Just Because It Is God Whom You Ask To Attend To Them.

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.

Set-backs In Efforts To Implement An Ideal Do Not Prove That The Ideal Is Wrong...

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.

Guarantees That

For All That Has Been, Thanks. To All That Shall Be, Yes.

Only One Feat Is Possible: Not To Have Run Away.

Strength In Adversity

Like Wind-- In It, With It, Of It. Of It Just Like A Sail, So Light And Strong That, Even When It Is Bent Flat, It Gathers All The Power Of The Wind Without Hampering Its Course. Like Light-- In Light, Lit Through By Light, Transformed Into Light. Like The Lens Which Disappears In The Light It Focuses. Like Wind. Like Light. Just This--on These Expanses, On These Heights.

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.

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.

I Never Discuss Discussions.

Never, For The Sake Of Peace And Quiet, Deny Your Own Experience Or Convictions.

You Are Merely The Lens In The Beam. You Can Only Receive, Give, And Possess The Light As The Lens Does. If You Seek Yourself, You Rob The Lens Of Its Transparency. You Will Know Life And Be Acknowledged By It According To Your Degree Of Transparency - Your Capacity, That Is, To Vanish As An End And Remain Purely As A Means.

The Light Died In The Low Clouds. Falling Snow Drank In The Dusk. Shrouded In Silence, The Branches Wrapped Me In Their Peace. When The Boundaries Were Erased, Once Again The Wonder: That *i* Exist.

Fatigue Dulls The Pain, But Awakes Enticing Thoughts Of Death. So! That Is The Way In Which You Are Tempted To Overcome Your Loneliness -- By Making The Ultimate Escape From Life. -- No! It May Be That Death Is To Be Your Ultimate Gift To Life: It Must Not Be An Act Of Treachery Against It.

We All Have Within Us A Center Of Stillness Surrounded By Silence.

Maturity - Among Other Things, The Unclouded Happiness Of The Child At Play, Who Takes It For Granted That He Is At One With His Play-mates.

It Is Easy To Be Nice, Even To An Enemy - From Lack Of Character.

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.

The More Faithfully You Listen To The Voices Within You, The Better You Will Hear What Is Sounding Outside.

'freedom From Fear' Could Be Said To Sum Up The Whole Philosophy Of Human Rights.

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.

Humility Before The Flower At The Timber Line Is The Gate Which Gives Access To The Path Up The Open Fell.

The Universal Declaration... As A Common Standard Of Achievement For All Peoples And All Nations...it Not Only Crystallizes The Political Thought Of Our Times On These Matters, But It Has Also Influenced The Thinking Of Legislators All Over The World.

We Cannot Afford To Forget Any Experience, Not Even The Most Painful.

Creative People Have To Be Fed From The Divine Source.

I Am The Vessel. The Draft Is God's. And God Is The Thirsty One.

What You Must Dare: Is To Be Yourself.

The Life Of Simplicity Is Simple, But It Opens To Us A Book In Which We Never Get Beyond The First Syllable.

I Believe That We Should Die With Decency So That At Least Decency Will Survive.

This Accidental Meeting Of Possibilities Calls Itself I. I Ask: What Am I Doing Here? And, At Once, This I Becomes Unreal.

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.

Doffing The Ego's Safe Glory, He Finds His Naked Reality.

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.

The Truth Is So Simple That It Is Regarded As A Pretentious Banality.

Smiling, Sincere, Incorruptible - His Body Disciplined And Limber. A Man Who Had Become What He Could, And Was What He Was- Ready At Any Moment To Gather Everything Into One Simple Sacrifice.

Forgiveness Breaks The Chain Of Causality Because He Who 'forgives' You--out Of Love--takes Upon Himself The Consequences Of What You Have Done. Forgiveness, Therefore, Always Entails A Sacrifice. The Price You Must Pay For Your Own Liberation Through Another's Sacrifice Is That You In Turn Must Be Willing To Liberate In The Same Way, Irrespective Of The Consequences To Yourself.

Only He Deserves Power Who Every Day Justifies It.

At Every Moment You Choose Yourself. But Do You Choose *your* Self? Body And Soul Contain A Thousand Possibilities Out Of Which You Can Build Many I's. But In One Of Them Is There A Congruence Of The Elector And The Elected. Only One--which You Will Never Find Until You Have Excluded All Those Superficial And Fleeting Possibilities Of Being And Doing With Which You Toy, Out Of Curiosity Or Wonder Or Greed, And Which Hinder You From Casting Anchor In The Experience Of The Mystery Of Life, And The Consciousness Of The Talent Entrusted To You Which Is Your *i*.

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.

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.

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.

Life Only Demands From You The Strength That You Possess. Only One Feat Is Possible; Not To Run Away.

Perhaps A Great Love Is Never Returned.

Unrequited Love

He Who Wants To Keep His Garden Tidy Doesn't Reserve A Plot For Weeds.

Pray That Your Loneliness May Spur You Into Finding Something To Live For, Great Enough To Die For.

Our Work For Peace Must Begin Within The Private World Of Each Of Us. To Build For Man A World Without Fear, We Must Be Without Fear. To Build A World Of Justice, We Must Be Just.

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