Spiritual Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on Forgiveness and 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.” — U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961), diary entry for Apr. 17, 1960, in Markings, translated by Leif Sjoeberg and W.H. Auden (1965) 

Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on the ‘Right to Command’)

"Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated." — Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961), United Nations Secretary General, in Markings, translated by Leif Sjoeberg and W.H. Auden (1965)

Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on the ‘Road to Holiness’)

“In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.” —Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961),  United Nations Secretary-General, in Markings, translated by Leif Sjoeberg and W.H. Auden (1965)

Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on What Life Demands)

“Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away.”-- Dag Hammarskjold, Markings: The Diary of Dag Hammarskjold (1964)

The great U.N. Secretary-General never ran away from life, or his many responsibilities. He died on this day 50 years ago, in a plane crash en route to ceasefire negotiations in the Congo.

Quote of the Day (Dag Hammarskjold, on the Surface “Life of Simplicity”)

“In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable."-- Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dag Hammarskjold, Markings