Quote

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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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.
Fear
Hearts
Death
Neither
Distances
Makes
Sex
Cling
Else
Clothes
Destroys
Nothing
Create
Preference
Heart
Race
Intimacy
Mind
Age
Sexual
Love
Freedom
Distance

More quotes by William Sloane Coffin

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Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin
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Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human.
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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.
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Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
William Sloane Coffin
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It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion the Bible seeks to open one.
William Sloane Coffin
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I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
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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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
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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.
William Sloane Coffin
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To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
William Sloane Coffin
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We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security.
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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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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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
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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.
William Sloane Coffin
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Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.
William Sloane Coffin
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I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.
William Sloane Coffin
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It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
William Sloane Coffin