Great Throughts Treasury

"To bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has at start with each one of us. When we begin to take the lowest place, to wash the feet of others, to love our brothers and sisters with that burning love, that passion, which led to the cross, then we can truly say, ‘Now I have begun.’"

"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?"

"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."

"God meant for things to be much easier than we have made them"

"God put us here to go through this kind of mental gymnastics, and He certainly put us here to enjoy our sexual lives. He put us here to ask, to try and find out the best way possible to live with our neighbors. Of course, you can go through a life not asking, and that's the tragedy: so many lives lived in moral blindness."

"Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth."

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

"Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily."

"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."

"Charity is only as warm as those who administer it."

"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."

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

"Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul."

"I felt that the Church was the Church of the poor,... but at the same time, I felt that it did not set its face against a social order which made so much charity in the present sense of the word necessary. I felt that charity was a word to choke over. Who wanted charity? And it was not just human pride but a strong sense of man's dignity and worth, and what was due to him in justice, that made me resent, rather than feel pround of so mighty a sum total of Catholic institutions."

"I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor."

"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."

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

"If we love enough, we are going to light a fire in the hearts of others."

"It is people who are important, not the masses."

"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."

"I don't think God is so jealous about our worship of Him that He will want to separate those who serve His purposes, serve His goodness, because they have read a book, even one written by an atheist, and have been moved, or because they have wanted to be fair all their lives, but have never stepped in a church, from those who have heard God's words in church or read His words in the Bible and become convinced by them."

"If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other's faults and burdens."

"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."

"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 we ourselves that we have to think about, no one else. That is the way the saints worked. They paid attention to what they were doing, and if others were attracted to them by their enterprise, why, well and good. But they looked to themselves first of all."

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

"Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair."

"Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them."

"Love and ever more love"

"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."

"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 fo 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?"

"My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms."

"Love in action is harsh and dreadful when compared to love in dreams."

"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

"Once a priest told us that no one gets up in the pulpit without promulgating a heresy. He was joking, of course, but what I suppose he meant was the truth was so pure, so holy, that it was hard to emphasize one aspect of the truth without underestimating another, that we did not see things as a whole, but through a glass darkly, as St. Paul said."

"One of the greatest evils of the day among those outside of prison is their sense of futility. Young 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; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment."

"Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

"The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor."

"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."

"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."

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

"The final word is love."

"The world was in terrible shape, and I'm glad we stood up and said what we believed; but a lot of the time we'd say these beautiful things about justice and fairness and equality, but we weren't so nice to each other. We'd be jealous and we'd gossip, and we'd be moody and difficult and rude and inconsiderate. Why do I say 'we'? I mean I would be all that-- and if at the time I ever came near to knowing what I'd become, I'd dodge, I'd duck, I'd go on the offensive: the terrible Wall Street bankers. Lots of them were terrible-- and so were lots of us."

"There should be some flavor of this in all our love for others. We are all one. We are one flesh in the Mystical Body as man and woman are said to be one flesh in marriage."

"They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time."

"To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!"

"True love is delicate and kind, full of gentle perception and understanding, full of beauty and grace, full of joy unutterable."

"Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate."

"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 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."