Quote

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

William Sloane Coffin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Personality

More quotes by William Sloane Coffin

Image
I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
All of life is the exercise of risk.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Isn't that what growing up is all about - learning to outlast despair?
William Sloane Coffin
Image
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
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
Image
For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.
William Sloane Coffin
Image
In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.
William Sloane Coffin