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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
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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.
Better
Thrash
Trying
Drowning
Men
Intervention
Swim
Divine
Waiting
Around
May
More quotes by William Sloane Coffin
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
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
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
Without love, violence will change the world it will change it into a more violent one.
William Sloane Coffin
Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.
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
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
Socrates had it wrong it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.
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
People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
William Sloane Coffin
We are not loved because we are valued we are valued because we are loved.
William Sloane Coffin
Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
William Sloane Coffin
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
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
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
William Sloane Coffin
All of life is the exercise of risk.
William Sloane Coffin
It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are, [for] all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely, and more interestingly.
William Sloane Coffin
Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
William Sloane Coffin
There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world.
William Sloane Coffin
Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
William Sloane Coffin
