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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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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.
Interest
Basis
Makes
Bases
Self
Decisions
Every
Morality
Based
Nation
Decision
Defends
Nations
Selfish
More quotes by William Sloane Coffin
For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.
William Sloane Coffin
We put our best foot forward, but it's the other one that needs the attention.
William Sloane Coffin
In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.
William Sloane Coffin
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
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
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
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
Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
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
We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin
Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human.
William Sloane Coffin
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
I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.'
William Sloane Coffin
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin
Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
William Sloane Coffin
To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.
William Sloane Coffin
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
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
Socrates had it wrong it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.
William Sloane Coffin
What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
William Sloane Coffin
