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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.
May
Better
Thrash
Trying
Drowning
Men
Intervention
Swim
Divine
Waiting
Around
More quotes by William Sloane Coffin
Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
William Sloane Coffin
We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin
Love is in the giver, not the gift.
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
Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
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
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin
People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
William Sloane Coffin
The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment.
William Sloane Coffin
I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
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
Human unity is not something we are called on to create — only something we are called on to recognize.
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
We put our best foot forward, but it's the other one that needs the attention.
William Sloane Coffin
For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.
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
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
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
Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
William Sloane Coffin
