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Statements & quotes – Dag Hammarskjöld
“In my new official capacity the private man should disappear and the international public servant take his place.”
– From a statement by Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the press when he arrived in New York, 9 April 1953 (Falkman 2005, p. 63).
“For some people the driving force in life is faith in the success of their efforts. For others it is simply a sense of duty. We need both types of men.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the University of California, Berkeley, 13 May 1954 (Falkman 2005, p. 208).
“Too often our learning, our knowledge, and our mastery are too much concentrated on techniques and we forget about man himself.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at Amherst College, 13 June 1954 (Falkman 2005, p. 207).
“Modern art teaches us to see by forcing us to use our senses, our intellect and our sensibility to follow it on its road of exploration.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 19 October 1954 (Falkman 2005, p. 220).
“A mature man is his own judge. In the end, his only form of support is being faithful to his own convictions. The advice of others may be welcome and valuable, but it does not free him from responsibility. Therefore, he may become very lonely.”
– From Dag Hammarskjöld’s inaugural address at the Swedish Academy, 20 December 1954 (Falkman 2005, p. 203).
“From generations of soldiers and government officials on my father’s side I inherited a belief that no life was more satisfactory than one of selfless service to your country – or humanity.”
– From the radio speech “This I Believe” by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1954 (Falkman 2005, p. 58).
“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.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the Johns Hopkins University, 14 June 1955 (Falkman 2005, pp. 199–200).
“The very rules of the game, and the specific position of the Secretariat inside the system, force the Secretariat in its activities as representative of the Organization as a whole to apply what is now often called quiet diplomacy. […] In the General Assembly, as well as in the Councils, open debate is the rule. […] They have introduced a new instrument of negotiation, that of conference diplomacy. This instrument has many advantages. […] But it has, also, weaknesses. There is the temptation to play to the gallery at the expense of solid construction. And there is the risk that positions once taken publicly become frozen, making a compromise more difficult.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the University of California, Berkeley, 25 June 1955 (Falkman 2005, pp. 131–132).
“Chou En-Lai stands out as the most superior brain I have found in the field of foreign policy”.
– From a private letter by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1955 (Falkman 2005, pp. 43–44).
“The principles of [the Charter of the United Nations] are, by far, greater than the Organization in which they are embodied, and the aims which they are to safeguard are holier than the policies of any single nation or people.”
– Statement by Dag Hammarskjöld in the General Assembly, 31 October 1956 (Falkman 2005, p. 28).
“True collective security, in the sense of an international police power engaged to defend the peace of the world, is to be found at the end, not at the beginning, of the effort to create and use world institutions that are effective in the service of the common interest.”
– From a speech by Dag Hammarskjöld, 1956 (Falkman 2005, p. 35).
“We should, rather, recognize the United Nations for what it is – an admittedly imperfect but indispensable instrument of nations working for a peace evolution towards a more just and secure world order.”
– Dag Hammarskjöld’s words from the introduction to the UN annual report 1956/1957 (Falkman 2005, p. 69).
“[…] United Nations itself as an experiment in international organization. […] The United Nations is something definite also in the sense that the concepts and ideals it represents, like the needs it tries to meet, will remain an ineluctable element of the world picture.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the American Jewish Committee, 10 April 1957 (Falkman 2005, pp. 68–69).
“It is easy to turn the responsibility over to others or, perhaps, to seek explanations in some kind of laws of history. It is less easy to look for the reasons within ourselves or in a field where we, all of us, carry major responsibility. However, such a search is necessary, because finally it is only within ourselves and in such fields that we can hope, by our own actions, to make a valid contribution to a turn of the trend of events.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the University of Cambridge, 5 June 1958 (Falkman 2005, p. 193).
“Public debate in the United Nations is dominated by the same differences among the parties as international political life as a whole. But behind closed doors these differences are diluted. The human factor carries more weight there, and confidential exchanges are possible even across frontiers which otherwise appear impassable.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld to the Students Association in Copenhagen, 2 May 1959 (Falkman 2005, p. 136).
“Sometimes one gets the impression that the Congo operation is looked at as being in the hands of the Secretary-General, as somehow distinct from the United Nations. No: this is your operation, gentlemen.”
– From statement by Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the General Assembly, 26 September 1960 (Falkman 2005, p. 82).
“By resigning, I would, therefore, at the present difficult and dangerous juncture throw the Organization to the winds. I have no right to do so because I have a responsibility to all those Member States for which the Organization is of decisive importance, a responsibility which overrides all other considerations.
It is not the Soviet Union or, indeed, any other big powers who need the United Nations for their protection; it is all the others. In this sense the Organization is first of all their Organization, and I deeply believe in the wisdom with which they will be able to use it and guide it. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the Organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so.
In this context the representative of the Soviet Union spoke of courage. It is very easy to resign; it is not so easy to stay on. It is very easy to bow to the wish of a big power. It is another matter to resist. As is well known to all members of this Assembly, I have done so before on many occasions and in many directions. If it is the wish of those nations who see in the Organization their best protection in the present world, I shall now do so again.”
– From statement by Dag Hammarskjöld in the General Assembly in response to the Soviet Union’s accusations that he was biased and did not have the courage to resign, 3 October 1960 (Falkman 2005, p. 86).
References
Falkman, K. (2005). To speak for the world: Speeches and Statements by Dag Hammarskjöld. Stockholm: Atlantis.