William Sloane Coffin

Charity is only a waystation on the road to justice.

Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.

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.

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.

Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment.

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.

It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.

I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.