Best 130 quotes of Dorothy Day on MyQuotes

A conversion is a lonely experience.

A 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' becomes again another dictator.

Advent is a time of waiting, of expectation, of silence. Waiting for our Lord to be born. A pregnant woman is so happy, so content. She lives in such a garment of silence, and it is as though she were listening to hear the stir of life within her. One always hears that stirring compared to the rustling of a bird in the hand. But the intentness which which one awaits such stirring is like nothing so much as a blanket of silence.

An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all.

And I was to find out then, as I found out so many times, over and over again, that women especially are social beings, who are not content with just husband and family, but must have a community, a group, an exchange with others. A child is not enough. A husband and children, no matter how busy one may be kept by them, are not enough. Young and old, even in the busiest years of our lives, we women especially are victims of the long loneliness.

As a child, I came across the Bible, but nobody in my family had anything to do with religion. I just felt a profound truth there that appealed to me.

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.

Be close enough to people so that you are indifferent to the material. And also have faith.

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

Charity is only as warm as those who administer it.

Christ is God or He is the world's greatest liar and imposter.

Common sense in religion is rare, and we are too often trying to be heroic instead of just ordinarily good and kind.

Communities are made up of the unlovable as well as the lovable.

Dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.

Everything a baptized person does each day should be directly or indirectly related to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

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.

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

For me Christ was not to be bought for thirty pieces of silver but with my heart's blood. We buy not cheap in this market.

God forbid we should have great institutions. The thing is to have many small centres. The ideal is community.

"How can you see Christ in people?" And we only say: It is an act of faith, constantly repeated. It is an act of love, resulting from an act of faith. It is an act of hope, that we can awaken these same acts in their hearts, too, with the help of God.

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 cannot worry much about your sins and miseries when I have so many of my own. I can only love you all, poor fellow travellers, fellow sufferers. I do not want to add one least straw to the burden you already carry.

I can write no other than this: unless we use the weapons of the spirit, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus, dying with Him and rising with Him, men will go on fighting, and often from the highest motives, believing that they are fighting defensive wars for justice and in self-defense against present or future aggression.

Idealism in the young, I guess I'm saying, is curiosity as well as goodness trying to express itself.

If I have achieved anything in my life, it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God.

I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor.

If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders.

If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.

I have been disillusioned, however, this long, long time in the means used by any but the saints to live in this world God has made for us.

I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and anguish, that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.

It is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.

I think anarchy is natural to the Catholic. The Church is pretty anarchistic, you know. Who pays attention to the Pope or the Cardinals?

I think one of the things we must constantly keep in mind is, 'If anybody hits you on one cheek, turn the other.'

I think that just as we're in the nuclear era we're also in an era of non-violence. It's undefeatable.

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.

It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

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.

I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.

It wasn't until Castro marched triumphantly into Cuba that you might say the whole thing grew into a Marxist revolution.

I was always much impressed, in reading prison memoirs of revolutionists, such as Lenin and Trotsky ... by the amount of reading they did, the languages they studied, the range of their plans for a better social order. (Or rather, for a new social order.) In the Acts of the Apostles there are constant references to the Way and the New Man.

Just as the birds of the air are fed, we'll continue to be fed.

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.

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.

Marx.... Lenin.... Mao Tse-Tung.... These men were animated by the love of brother and this we must believe though their ends meant the seizure of power, and the building of mighty armies, the compulsion of concentration camps, the forced labor and torture and killing of tens of thousands, even millions.

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.

Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night. But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.

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

My whole life so far, my whole experience has been that our failure has been not to love enough. This conviction brought me to a rejection of the radical movement after my early membership in the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communist affiliates I worked with.

Of all the charges made against the Communists these days of congressional investigations, the charge of loose morals is seldom heard, so very loose have become those of "Christian" people.