William Sloane Coffin Quotes

“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

“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

“Many of us overvalue autonomy, the strength to stand alone, the capacity to act independently. Far too few of us pay attention to the virtues of dependence and interdependence, and especially to the capacity to be vulnerable.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“God provides minimum protection, maximum support
support to help us grow up, to stretch our minds and hearts until they are as wide as God's universe.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“The banality of guilt is that it is such a convenient substitute for responsibility. It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“To love is surely to support and to encourage
but not necessarily to approve. Quite the contrary! If we love one another we will help one another fight against our evil dreams.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“It is bad religion to deify doctrines and creeds ... Doctrines, let's not forget, supported slavery and apartheid ... Moreover, doctrines can divide while compassion can only unite.”

— William Sloane Coffin

There are two ways to be powerful. One is to seek and acquire power, the other is not to need it. There are also two ways to be rich. One is to gain riches, and the other is not to need them.

— William Sloane Coffin

“Remember also that scars of all sorts are all right. Scars are wounds that have healed, not without a trace, but have healed nonetheless. Think of all the scar tissue around Christ's heart, Jesus our wounded healer.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Hope criticizes what is, hopelessness rationalizes it. Hope resists, hopelessness adapts.”

— William Sloane Coffin

I also was persuaded that the woman most in need of liberation was the woman in every man just as the man most in need of liberation was the man in every woman.

— William Sloane Coffin

“We want God to be strong, so that we can be weak. But He wants to be weak so that we can be strong.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.”

— 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

“Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race ... Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports - one planet indivisible, with clean air, ... soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all.”

— 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

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

“Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human.”

— 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

“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

Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.

— William Sloane Coffin

“The war against Iraq is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, purpose and motives, the worst war in American history ... Our military men and women ... were not called to defend America but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for, but rather to kill for, their country. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters ... ?”

— William Sloane Coffin

“A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.”

— 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

For finally, we are as we love. It is love that measures our stature.

— William Sloane Coffin

We are not loved because we are valued; we are valued because we are loved.

— William Sloane Coffin

God knows it is emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself on the blood of sinners. But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can be spiritually devastating.

— 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

We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security.

— William Sloane Coffin

“In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Unity is not something we are called to create; it's something we are called to recognize.”

— 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

“We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation”

— William Sloane Coffin

Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.

— William Sloane Coffin

Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.

— William Sloane Coffin

“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

“People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Without love, violence will change the world; it will change it into a more violent one.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.”

— William Sloane Coffin

“Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.”

— William Sloane Coffin

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

— William Sloane Coffin

“I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.”

— 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

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