64+ William Sloane Coffin Quotes On Death, Coffin And Social Justice Advocate

William Sloane Coffin was an American activist and clergyman who was a prominent figure in the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements. He was a leader in the peace movement and a vocal critic of the Reagan administration's policies. He was also a chaplain at Yale University for many years and a pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. Following is our collection on famous quotes by William Sloane Coffin on death, love, life.

Top 10 William Sloane Coffin Quotes

1. 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.
2. Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
3. I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
4. The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment.
5. 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.
6. There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human.

William Sloane Coffin Short Quotes

• Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.
• It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.
• To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
• We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
• We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security.
• Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
• Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation
• I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be.
• People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
• Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.

William Sloane Coffin Quotes About Love

Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. — William Sloane Coffin

I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK. — William Sloane Coffin

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

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

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

What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love. — William Sloane Coffin

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. — William Sloane Coffin

Without love, violence will change the world; it will change it into a more violent one. — William Sloane Coffin

William Sloane Coffin Quotes About Life

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

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

Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment. — William Sloane Coffin

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

In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions. — William Sloane Coffin

All of life is the exercise of risk. — William Sloane Coffin

William Sloane Coffin Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful. — William Sloane Coffin

It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty. — 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

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

I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.' — William Sloane Coffin

We call on all members of America's religious communities, as a testament of our common faith, to join Faithful Security, and to take action immediately to break faith with nuclear weapons. — 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

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

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

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

Christians have no business thinking that the good life consists mainly in not doing bad things. We have no business thinking that to do evil in this world you have to be a Bengal tiger, when, in fact, it is enough to be a tame tabby—a nice person but not a good one. In short, Pentecost makes it clear that nothing is so fatal to Christianity as indifference. — 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

We put our best foot forward, but it's the other one that needs the attention. — 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

Love is in the giver, not the gift. — William Sloane Coffin

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

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

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

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

It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out. — 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

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

Life Lessons by William Sloane Coffin

1. William Sloane Coffin demonstrated the power of peaceful activism to bring about social change. He showed that it is possible to fight for justice without resorting to violence and to speak truth to power without fear.
2. He was a strong advocate for civil rights, nuclear disarmament, and social justice, and his legacy serves as an inspiration for those who seek to make the world a better place.
3. He taught us the importance of standing up for what is right, even in the face of opposition, and to never give up in the pursuit of justice and equality.