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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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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.
Pain
Thought
Without
Solace
Avoided
Costs
Cost
Opinion

More quotes by 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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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
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What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
William Sloane Coffin
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I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
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. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself.
William Sloane Coffin
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Christians have to listen to the world as well as to the Word - to science, to history, to what reason and our own experience tell us. We do not honor the higher truth we find in Christ by ignoring truths found elsewhere.
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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Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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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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Love is in the giver, not the gift.
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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We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.
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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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