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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.

William Sloane Coffin

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William Sloane Coffin
Age: 81 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 1
Died: 2006
Died: April 12
Activist
Pastor
New York City
New York
William Sloane Coffin
Jr.
Hardest
Perhaps
Dangerous
Society
May
Live
Without
Thing
Diversity

More quotes by William Sloane Coffin

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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?
William Sloane Coffin
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We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin
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The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.'
William Sloane Coffin
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What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
William Sloane Coffin
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Christians have to listen to the world as well as to the Word - to science, to history, to what reason and our own experience tell us. We do not honor the higher truth we find in Christ by ignoring truths found elsewhere.
William Sloane Coffin
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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.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
William Sloane Coffin
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Without love, violence will change the world it will change it into a more violent one.
William Sloane Coffin
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Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.
William Sloane Coffin
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I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
William Sloane Coffin
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For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
William Sloane Coffin
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In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.
William Sloane Coffin
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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