Can a quote change your life? Everyone seems to love quotes and I am no exception. One day, some years ago, I came across a quote in an unexpected way. I had bought a crafting magazine looking for ideas to do with my kids. Above a story about paper crafters was a quote from Dag Hammarskjold:
“For all that has been — Thanks! To all that shall be — Yes!”
“For all that has been — Thanks! To all that shall be — Yes!”Dag Hammarskjold
A few simple words but they hit me like a hammer. My own thoughts seemed so far removed from that. Was it possible, I wondered, that a person could actually think this way? To be so grateful for the past and so enthusiastic about the future. This would mean living without fear. Who was this person?
I soon found out that Dag Hammarskjold was a Swedish diplomat who was the Secretary-General of the United Nations when he died in an plane crash in 1961. He is well known for his book of diary excerpts called “Markings” which was published after his death in 1963. In the years afterwards those words remained with me as a benchmark and a goal.
It was a almost four years after I read the quote that I first read Gary Renard’s “Disappearance of the Universe”. Now after almost ten years of working on forgiveness those words no longer seem an unattainable dream – it feels like a destination which is coming closer and closer. I still enjoy quotes and I find it encouraging that so many people are thinking and feeling beautiful things. When I read them, I again try to think of the mindset of the person writing it. Could I write the same words that day, that minute and believe them? I do think a quote can change your life- has one changed yours? I’d like to know!
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“It just got too hard” she said.
“If it were easy everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great” he said.
From “A League of Their Own”
Once I heard ” the day I lost my hope was the day I became free”