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What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.

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.
Power
Love
Grasped
Faith

More quotes by 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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To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
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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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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I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
William Sloane Coffin
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A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
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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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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Love is in the giver, not the gift.
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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All of life is the exercise of risk.
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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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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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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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
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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.
William Sloane Coffin
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Human unity is not something we are called on to create — only something we are called on to recognize.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Isn't that what growing up is all about - learning to outlast despair?
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