Explore Quotes by Daniel Berrigan

I never met a Jesuit before I applied for the order.

I think of my brother just out of prison again. He will have spent ten years of the last 30 in prison.

No principle is worth the sacrifice of a single human being.

Of course, let us have peace, we cry, "but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties ... " There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison, and death in its wake.

The sponsors of war closely resemble the weapons they create. And smart bombs, depleted uranium, land mines, rockets and tanks, rather than protect 'widows and orphans and strangers at the gate', are designed precisely to create 'widows and orphans', to transform strangers into enemies and enemies into corpses.

One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible.

If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.

The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.

Because success is such a weasel word anyway, it's such a horribly American word, and it's such a vamp and, I think it's a death trap.

Instead of building the peace by attacking injustices like starvation, disease, illiteracy, political and economic servitude, we spend a trillion dollars on war since 1946, until hatred and conflict have become the international preoccupation.

Because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total - but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.

Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.

The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers.