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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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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.
Governed
Law
Force
Must
More quotes by William Sloane Coffin
The temptation to moralize is strong it is emotionally satisfying to have enemies rather than problems, to seek out culprits rather than the flaws in the system.
William Sloane Coffin
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
We are not loved because we are valued we are valued because we are loved.
William Sloane Coffin
Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
William Sloane Coffin
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin
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
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
Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.
William Sloane Coffin
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
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
Human unity is not something we are called on to create — only something we are called on to recognize.
William Sloane Coffin
Isn't that what growing up is all about - learning to outlast despair?
William Sloane Coffin
All of life is the exercise of risk.
William Sloane Coffin
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
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin
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
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
Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment.
William Sloane Coffin
To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
William Sloane Coffin
The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
William Sloane Coffin
