There is no smaller package in the world...

There is no smaller package in the world that that of a person all wrapped up in himself.

-William Sloane Coffin

I began to wonder if fighting fire with fire...

I began to wonder if fighting fire with fire didn't just leave more ashes.

-William Sloane Coffin

Sacrifice in and of itself confers no sanctity...

Sacrifice in and of itself confers no sanctity.

William Sloane Coffin

The primary problems of the planet arise not from the poor...

The primary problems of the planet arise not from the poor, for whom education is the answer; they arise from the well-educated, for whom self-interest is the problem.

-William Sloane Coffin

An eye for an eye is about limiting vengeance...

An eye for an eye is about limiting vengeance. You can only take an eye out for an eye; you may not kill someone for knocking out your eye. It means restraining tribal violence.

-Karen Armstrong

When you grow up on fantasy, you grow old in brutality...

I recall a line from William Butler Yeats that when you grow up on fantasy, you grow old in brutality. Fantasy is fine as a vacation, but when it becomes the bulk of our daily diet I fear that we no longer know the difference between fantasy and reality - and that breeds brutality.

-John Dominic Crossan

The centrality of our mission is to love each other...

... the centrality of our mission is to love each other. That means caring for our neighbors. And this does not mean bickering about the fine points of doctrine.

-Katharine Jefferts Schori

Capital punishment as more evil than murder...

When someone talks to you, you know they are talking to you. When these flashes of light came to me, I knew someone was communicating messages to me. I did not know who, but I knew the messages were not mine. One insight in particular was shocking. I had always felt that capital punishment was theologically justified because it was allowed and prescribed in the Old Testament. But this new insight told me that when people execute someone, they are tearing that person out of God's hands and refusing to allow God to continue His unfinished work in that soul.

That thought frightened me; I began to see capital punishment as more evil than murder, because it was the act of the self-righteous intentionally snatching from the Creator a person whom God was still in the process of saving. From then on I saw execution as an arrogant ssault on God's control over human life and as a subtle denial of belief in God. I could see clearly then that the executioner and those demanding execution are no different in God's eyes from the murderer who tries to justify his crime. Both deny to the Creator control over human life, he right to finish the divine work of redemption in the souls of those they execute.

-Joseph F. Girzone

Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

What we know about individuals, no matter how rich the details, will never give us the ability to predict how they will behave as a system. Once individuals link together they become something different…Relationships change us, reveal us, evoke more from us. Only when we join with others do our gifts become visible, even to ourselves.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on...

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

-Julia Alvarez