The Royal Mountain

"From that hour, I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. Led by Ariadne's thread of my answer through the labyrinth of Life, I came to a time and place where I realized that the Way leads to a triumph which is a catastrophe, and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price for committing one's life would be reproach, and that the only elevation possible to man lies in the depths of humiliation. After that, the word 'courage' lost its meaning, since nothing could be taken from me."    -Dag Hammarskjold

Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It is--is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self-effacement. To be nothing in the self-effacement of humility, yet, for the sake of the task, to embody its whole weight and importance in your bearing, as the one who has been called to undertake it. To give to people, works, poetry, art, what the self can contribute, and to take, simply and freely, what belongs to it by reason of its identity. Praise and blame, the winds of success and adversity, blow over such a life without leaving a trace or upsetting its balance. Towards this, so help me, God--    -Dag Hammarskjold

"You wake from dreams of doom and--for a moment--you know: beyond all the noise and gestures, the only real thing, love's calm and unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn."  -Dag Hammarskjold

"Did you choose your words carefully enough, what impression did you make, did they think you were trying to be ingratiating, etc.? It is questions like these which keep you awake. Are you no longer confident that your instinctive reactions will guide you right? If so, you know why. You have allowed your hunger for 'justice' to make you self-conscious, so that, in the performance of your task, you no longer forget yourself. So, and only so, can you be wounded by the opinions of the crowd." -Dag Hammarskjold

"The intense blaze of your anxiety reveals to what a great extent you are still fettered, still alienated from the One. However, don't worry about this or anything else, but follow the Way of which you are aware, even when you have departed from it. 'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou will.'" -Dag Hammarskjold

"Would the crucifixion have had any sublimity or meaning if Jesus had seen Himself crowned with the halo of martyrdom? What we have later added was not there for him. And we must forget all about it if we are to hear his commands."  -Dag Hammarskjold

"It merely happens to one man and not to others...but he can take no credit to himself for the gifts and responsibility assigned to him...destiny is something not to be desired and not to be avoided...it is a mystery, not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning."  -Dag Hammarskjold