William Sloane Coffin Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. We can never really love anybody with whom we never laugh. Love is in the giver, not the gift.
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Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful.
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There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world.
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God knows it is emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself on the blood of sinners. But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can be spiritually devastating.
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It is one thing to say with the prophet Amos, "Let justice roll down like mighty waters," and quite another to work out the irrigation system.
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It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.
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Human unity is not something we are called on to create — only something we are called on to recognize.
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Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
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People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
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Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation
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For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.
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The one true freedom in life is to come to terms with death, and as early as possible, for death is an event that embraces all our lives. And the only way to have a good death is to lead a good life. The more we do God's will, the less unfinished business we leave behind when we die.
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I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
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A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
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Christians have no business thinking that the good life consists mainly in not doing bad things. We have no business thinking that to do evil in this world you have to be a Bengal tiger, when, in fact, it is enough to be a tame tabby—a nice person but not a good one. In short, Pentecost makes it clear that nothing is so fatal to Christianity as indifference.
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We are not loved because we are valued; we are valued because we are loved.
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Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.
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In our time all it takes for evil to flourish is for a few good men to be a little wrong and have a great deal of power, and for the vast majority of their fellow citizens to remain indifferent.
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What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
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Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
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To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
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Without love, violence will change the world; it will change it into a more violent one.
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It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp?
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For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.