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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.
Makes
Bases
Self
Decisions
Every
Morality
Based
Nation
Decision
Defends
Nations
Selfish
Interest
Basis
More quotes by William Sloane Coffin
Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment.
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
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
Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
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
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
William Sloane Coffin
There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
William Sloane Coffin
We are not loved because we are valued we are valued because we are loved.
William Sloane Coffin
For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.
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
It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion the Bible seeks to open one.
William Sloane Coffin
Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.
William Sloane Coffin
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin
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
I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
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
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
Without love, violence will change the world it will change it into a more violent one.
William Sloane Coffin
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
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
