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Isn't that what growing up is all about - learning to outlast despair?

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.
Outlast
Despair
Learning
Growing

More quotes by 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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To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
William Sloane Coffin
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Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.
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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Socrates had it wrong it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
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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Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
William Sloane Coffin
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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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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.
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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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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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
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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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Without love, violence will change the world it will change it into a more violent one.
William Sloane Coffin
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I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.'
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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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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I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin