William Sloane Coffin famous quotes

I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Wings #Firsts #Leap

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Truth #World #Dangerous

The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Ignorance #Self #Violence

Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Hope #Passion

A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Spiritual #Godly #Trying

There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Believe #Intellectual #Leap Of Faith

Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Taste #Truth Is #Danger

In reality, there are no biblical literalists, only selective literalists. By abolishing slavery and ordaining women, millions of Protestants have gone far beyond biblical literalism. It's time we did the same for homophobia.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Gay #Biblical #Reality

I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Loving Yourself #Loving You

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Heart #Optimistic #Independent

It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Mistake #Biblical #Looks

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Justice #Water #Work Out

Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Compassion #Justice #Choices

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Love #Laughing #World

Unity is not something we are called to create; it's something we are called to recognize.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Spiritual #Unity

We are not loved because we are valued; we are valued because we are loved.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Best Love

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Good Life #Way #Events

Jesus is both a mirror to our humanity and a window to divinity, a window revealing as much of God as is given mortal eyes to see. When Christians see Christ empowering the weak, scorning the powerful, healing the wounded, and judging their tormentors, we are seeing transparently the power of God at work.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Christian #Jesus #Powerful

It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Important #Leap Of Faith #Matter

If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security. If a heart is full of love, it will have a limbering effect on the mind.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Heart #Mind #Security

We put our best foot forward, but it's the other one that needs the attention.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Feet #Needs #Attention

We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Law #Force

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Country #Reflection #Two

Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Religious #Weapons #Merit

We call on all members of America's religious communities, as a testament of our common faith, to join Faithful Security, and to take action immediately to break faith with nuclear weapons.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Religious #America #Community

All of life is the exercise of risk.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Exercise #Risk #Life Is

It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Achievement #Values

Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Selfish #Decision #Morality

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. He told me that once he forgot himself and opened up like a door with a loose latch and everything fell out and he tried for days to put it all back in the proper order, but he finally gave up and left if there in a pile and loved everything equally. thanks to a subscriber! -William Sloan Coffin.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Love #Doors #Order

Isn't that what growing up is all about - learning to outlast despair?
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Growing Up #Despair #Growing

It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Sticks #Necks #Easier

I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Way #Should #Unsure

Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Love #Bigger

To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Compassion #Sentimental #Individual

The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Men #Needs #He Man

Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Diversity #May #Dangerous

Love is in the giver, not the gift.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Love #Love Is #Giver

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Inspirational Love #Men #World

Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Violence #Environment #Human Life

Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Compassion #Justice #Charity

The war against Iraq is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, purpose and motives, the worst war in American history... Our military men and women...were not called to defend America but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for, but rather to kill for, their country. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters...?
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Country #Daughter #Military

In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Courage #Passion #Values

Fear destroys intimacy. It distances us from each other; or makes us cling to each other, which is the death of freedom.... Only love can create intimacy, and freedom too, for when all hearts are one, nothing else has to be one--neither clothes nor age; neither sex nor sexual preference; race nor mind-set.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Sex #Distance #Heart

What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Power Of Love

Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Uncommitted

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Christian #Good Life #Nice

People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#People #Injustice #Produce

It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp?
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Thinking #Make You Think #Church

It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are, [for] all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely, and more interestingly.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Sports #Exercise #Risk

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.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Christian #Punishment #Rejection

Of God's love we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God's love doesn't seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Two #Achievement #Pope

For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.
-- William Sloane Coffin

#Love