Some quoteworthy quotes:

So I've been reading a book that Gretchen gave me for Christmas. It's called Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld. At first I was like, Sven who? It was originally written in Swedish so that's grounds to at least begin reading anything. My thoughts now:
Who cares who Klauss whoever is.. THIS BOOK IS AMAZING AND THE GUY WAS A GENIUS.
Markings is basically journal entries from this guy Dag Hammarskjöld who was a politician in Sweden between 1925 and 1950 when Europe was basically in constant turmoil. I'm only about a third of the way through the book but the amount of insight in ever single passage of his journal is outrageous. It makes all of my journal entries look like "Dear Diary, today Tommy Jones looked at me and I giggled." or "Dear Diary, why doesn't John Carlson ever smell bad? HE DOESN'T EVEN WEAR COLOGNE!"

So here are some snippets of what I've been reading. If you're tired, it's best to go take a nap and come back fresh.

"Openness to life grants a lightening-swift insight into the life situation of others. What is necessary?- to wrestle with your problem until its emotional discomfort is clearly conceived in an intellectual form- and then act accordingly."
(finally someone more emotionally cold than I am...TROY.)

"It makes one's heart ache when one sees that a man has staked his soul upon some end, the hopeless imperfection and futility of which is immediately obvious to everyone but himself. But isn't this, after all, merely a matter of degree? Isn't the pathetic grandeur of human existence in some way bound up with the eternal disproportion in this world, where self-delusion is necessary to life, between the honesty of the striving and the nullity of the result? That we all- every one of us- take ourselves seriously is not merely ridiculous."

"Beauty: a note that set the heartstrings quivering as it flew by; the shimmer of blood beneath a skin translucent in the sunlight.
Beauty: the wind which refreshed the traveler, not the stifling heat in dark adits where beggars grubbed for gold."
(makes my idea that beauty is an emotion a little less eloquent and original but I take it as a compliment)

"You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds."

That last one stings a little for me, and it's been on my mind for at least the last day. So basically, I recommend this book highly. Hammarskjöld is a little bit cynical and in my opinion errs on the side of not enough grace, however, some of his ideas are sobering when I'm more likely to err on the side of prancing around in a field of hysteria.