Dorothy Day Quotes

Our faith is stronger than death, our philosophy is firmer than flesh, and the spread of the Kingdom of God upon the earth is more sublime and more compelling.

Thank God that He has permitted us to live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.

Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up.

When they call you a saint, it means basically that you are not to be taken seriously.

If you are going to try and change things, you had better have your wits about you.

Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.

The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.

The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose.

As for ourselves, yes, we must be meek, bear injustice, malice, rash judgment. We must turn the other cheek, give up our cloak, go a second mile.

The legal battle against segregation is won, but the community battle goes on.

Communities are made up of the unlovable as well as the lovable.

When it comes to labor and politics, I am inclined to be sympathetic to the left, but when it comes to the Catholic Church, then I am far to the right.

Everything a baptized person does each day should be directly or indirectly related to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

How much did I hear of religion as a child? Very little, and yet my heart leaped when I heard the name of God. I do believe every soul has a tendency toward God.

The work is more important than the talking and the writing about the work.

We cannot build up the idea of the apostolate of the laity without the foundation of the liturgy.

Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?

It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over.

When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them.

I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and anguish, that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.

Knitting is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again.

It is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.

No matter how corrupt the Church may become, it carries within it the seeds of its own regeneration.

The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community.

It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living.

It is people who are important, not the masses.

The holy man was the whole man, the man of integrity, who not only tried to change the world, but to live in it as it was.

Some have more capacity. Some proceed a few steps along the way. But Christ seemed to love all men. He desired all to be saved.

The idea that when the health of one member suffers, the health of the whole body is lowered is a teaching of St Paul which is timeless.

It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

One of the disconcerting facts about the spiritual life is that God takes you at your word.

Recording happiness made it last longer, we felt, and recording sorrow dramatized it and took away its bitterness; and often we settled some problem which beset us even while we wrote about it.

If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders.

Christ is God or He is the world's greatest liar and imposter.

We are not, most of us, capable of exalted emotion, save rarely.

We are the nation the most powerful, the most armed and we are supplying arms and money to the rest of the world where we are not ourselves fighting. We are eating while there is famine in the world.

We're under obligation to love - that's the commandment.

There's enough hate in the world. I command you to love. And you have to make an effort.

A 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' becomes again another dictator.

Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life.

Together with the works of mercy, feeding, sheltering, and clothing our brothers, we must indoctrinate.

First of all, let it be remembered that I speak as an ex-Communist and one who has not testified before Congressional Committees, nor written works on the Communist conspiracy.

When it comes down to it, even on the natural plane, it is much happier and more enlivening to love than to be loved.

If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.

God forbid we should have great institutions. The thing is to have many small centres. The ideal is community.

It's Godlike to love man - even in his sin - merely because he's man.

I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.

Women think with their whole bodies

For me Christ was not to be bought for thirty pieces of silver but with my heart's blood. We buy not cheap in this market.

The whole point of view of the anarchist is that everything must start from the bottom up, from man. It seems to me so human a philosophy.