Dorothy Day
Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.Collection: Strength
Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.Collection: Food
Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them.Collection: Relationship
Women think with their whole bodies and they see things as a whole more than men do.Collection: Women
The legal battle against segregation is won, but the community battle goes on.Collection: Legal
I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.Collection: Sympathy
I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.
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.
I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor.
The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
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.
We cannot build up the idea of the apostolate of the laity without the foundation of the liturgy.
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.
We believe in loving our brothers regardless of race, color or creed and we believe in showing this love by working for better conditions immediately and the ultimate owning by the workers of their means of production.
We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.
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.
Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm.
Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.
They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.
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.
We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission.
Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life.
It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us - to see Christ in him.
Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate.
When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us.
People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.Collection: People
I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.Collection: Women
What we would like to do is change the world - make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do....We can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.Collection: Heart
As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way.Collection: War
Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other's faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.Collection: Love
The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.Collection: Forever
If you feed the poor, you're a saint. If you ask why they're poor, you're a Communist.Collection: Saint
The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us. When we begin to take the lowest places, to wash the feet of others, to love our brothers with that burning love, that passion which led to the cross, then we can truly say, 'Now I have begun'.Collection: Brother
Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.Collection: Success
No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.Collection: Wisdom
Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.Collection: Voice
Your love for God is only as great as the love you have for the person you love the least.Collection: Love You
The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.Collection: Love
Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.Collection: Acceptance
We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.Collection: Sight
What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that.Collection: Ponds
If I have achieved anything in my life, it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God.Collection: Faith
Maybe I was praying for him then, in my own way. Does God have a set way of prayer, a way that He expects each of us to follow? I doubt it. I believe some people-- lots of people-- pray through the witness of their lives, through the work they do, the friendships they have, the love they offer people and receive from people. Since when are words the only acceptable form of prayer?Collection: Prayer
To feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the harborless without also trying to change the social order so that people can feed, clothe and shelter themselves is just to apply palliatives. It is to show a lack of faith in one’s fellows, their responsibilitie s as children of God, heirs of heaven.Collection: Children
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all.Collection: Life
You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it's right.Collection: Joy
An individual can march for peace or vote for peace and can have, perhaps, some small influence on global concerns. But the same individual is a giant in the eyes of a child at home. If peace is to be built, it must start with the individual. It is built brick by brick.Collection: Children
My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.Collection: Coffee
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.Collection: Philosophy
The theoretician of the Marxist revolution in Cuba certainly wasn't Castro. It was Don Carlos Rafaelo Rodriguez. He was the theoretician and very often people say he will take over. But I don't believe it. I think that it's a very good combination - the Catholic man working together with a man like that who has everything pretty well planned.Collection: Believe