Quotes by Dag Hammarskjöld

Dag Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was the youngest person to have held the post, at an age of 47 years upon his appointment. His second term was cut short when he was killed in an airplane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis. He is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize.

Hammarskjöld has been referred to as one of the two best secretaries-general 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 Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century."

Quotes:

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

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.

For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes!

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

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.

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.

The longest journey is the journey inward.

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

Life only demands from you the strength you possess.

He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.

It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.

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.

Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.

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.

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.

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.

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

No peace which is not peace for all, no rest until all has been fulfilled.

I am the vessel. The draft is God's. And God is the thirsty one.

Quotes by Björn Borg

Björn Borg is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player widely considered to be one of the greatest in the history of the sport.  Between 1974 and 1981 he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles (six at the French Open and five consecutive at Wimbledon). He also won three year-end championships and 15 Grand Prix Super Series titles. Overall, he set numerous records that still stand.

Quotes:

If you're afraid of losing, then you daren't win.

You have to find it. No one else can find it for you.

My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.

I wanted to win, even in practice.

I had a great tennis career. I have no regrets. But to find peace with yourself, and to finally be with your family - I'm probably the happiest guy in the world.

Quotes by Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany, and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures. Heyerdahl also proposed that Azerbaijan was the site of an ancient advanced civilization. He believed that natives migrated north through waterways to present-day Scandinavia. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984.

Quotes:

Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

Some people believe in fate, others don’t. I do, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.

Agreement and acceptance rarely stimulate experiments and progress.

Pearls rarely turn up in oysters served to you on a plate; you have to dive for them.

Then we heard, rather faintly, in the receiver: “If all’s well, why worry?"

In my experience, it is rarer to find a really happy person in a circle of millionaires than among vagabonds.

One learns more from listening than speaking. And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear within university walls.

It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch.

Circumstances cause us to act the way we do. We should always bear this in mind before judging the actions of others.

It says in the Bible, in plain words, that God made a self-portrait. He created man in His own image - man and woman - for God is Love. Why should we start thinking of a god up in the clouds with wings, if He dwells within us in the spirit of Love?!

A civilized nation can have no enemies, and one cannot draw a line across a map, a line that doesn't even exist in nature and say that the ugly enemy lives on the one side, and good friends live on the other.

I was in uniform for four years, and I know that heroism doesn't occur from taking orders, but rather from people who through their own willpower and strength are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea.

I have never been able to grasp the meaning of time. I don't believe it exists. I've felt this again and again, when alone and out in nature. On such occasions, time does not exist. Nor does the future exist.