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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.
-Dorothy Day
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An Act Of Love,

Dorothy Day
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "an act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of..."

This quote by Dorothy Day reflects deeply on the theme of love. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Love, Hope, Courage, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Dorothy Day interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day is celebrated for insightful thoughts on love and hope. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Love
Hope
Courage
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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.
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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.
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You See I'm Such A Fool That I'm Never Afraid Of Appearing Foolish.
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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.
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The Works Of Mercy Are The Opposite Of The Works Of War, Feeding The Hungry, Sheltering The Homeless, Nursing The Sick, Visiting The Prisoner. But We Are Destroying Crops, Setting Fire To Entire Villages And To The People In Them. We Are Not Performing The Works Of Mercy But The Works Of War.
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Just As The Birds Of The Air Are Fed, We'll Continue To Be Fed.
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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.
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Some Have More Capacity. Some Proceed A Few Steps Along The Way. But Christ Seemed To Love All Men. He Desired All To Be Saved.
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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.
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"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.
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Thinking
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I Too Complain Ceaselessly In My Heart And In My Words Too. My Very Life Is A Protest. Against Government, For Instance.
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Complaining
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Movement
If I Have Achieved Anything In My Life, It Is Because I Have Not Been Embarrassed To Talk About God.
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Dictator
Proletariat
Dictatorship
Castro Wasn't A Marxist. He Was A Catholic Educated By The Christian Brothers And The Jesuits. But Fundamentally, I'm Not Talking About Practising Catholics, But Rather About Something Which Is Inbred; That Is, A Part Of Your Country, Your Heritage, Your Life.
Christian
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Brother
What I Read In The Bible Seemed To Me To Be Very Much A Part Of Daily Life.
Daily Life
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Community
Battle
Goes On
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Mistake
Play
Safe
There's Enough Hate In The World. I Command You To Love. And You Have To Make An Effort.
Hate
Effort
World
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.
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Order
People
Christ Is God Or He Is The World's Greatest Liar And Imposter.
Jesus
Liars
World
These Powerless People At The Bottom Are The Ones With Whom We Must Begin. They Must Have The Insight And The Knowledge To Work Together And Recognise That They Are On The Right Track.
People
Track
Working Together
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.
Reading
Men
Order
We Are Not, Most Of Us, Capable Of Exalted Emotion, Save Rarely.
Emotion
Exalted
Capable
Turn Off Your Radio. Put Away Your Daily Paper. Read One Review Of Events A Week And Spend Some Time Reading Good Books. They Tell Too Of Days Of Striving And Of Strife. They Are Of Other Centuries And Also Of Our Own. They Make Us Realize That All Times Are Perilous, That Men Live In A Dangerous World, In Peril Constantly Of Losing Or Maiming Soul And Body. We Get Some Sense Of Perspective Reading Such Books. Renewed Courage And Faith And Even Joy To Live.
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Reading
Men
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Government
Suffering
True Love Is Delicate And Kind, Full Of Gentle Perception And Understanding, Full Of Beauty And Grace, Full Of Joy Unutterable. 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. With Such A Love One Would See All Things New; We Would Begin To See People As They Really Are, As God Sees Them.
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Men
People
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.
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People
World
Dear God, Please Enlarge Our Hearts To Love Each Other, To Love Our Neighbor, To Love Our Enemy As Well As Our Friend.
Heart
Enemy
Dear God
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.
Love
Heart
Sacrifice
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.
Brother
Believe
Army
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.
Brother
Believe
Mean
One Of The Disconcerting Facts About The Spiritual Life Is That God Takes You At Your Word.
Spiritual
Facts
Life Is
I Do Not Know How To Love God Except By Loving The Poor. I Do Not Know How To Serve God Except By Serving The Poor.... Here, Within This Great City Of Nine Million People, We Must, In This Neighborhood, On This Street, In This Parish, Regain A Sense Of Community Which Is The Basis For Peace In The World.
Cities
People
Community
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.
Time
People
Evil
Every Marxist Group That I've Known Has Its Theoreticians.
Groups
Marxist
Known
No One Has A Right To Sit Down And Feel Hopeless. There's Too Much Work To Do.
Wisdom
Peace
Down And
Where Were The Saints To Try To Change The Social Order, Not Just To Minister To The Slaves, But To Do Away With Slavery?
Order
Trying
Saint
To Try To Stop War By Placing Before Men's Eyes The Terrible Suffering Involved Will Never Succeed, Because Men Are Willing (in Their Thoughts And Imaginations At Least) To Face Any Kind Of Suffering When Motivated By Noble Aims Like The Vague And Tremendous Concept Of Freedom ... Or, In Their Humility (or Sloth - Who Knows?) Men Are Quite Willing To Leave Decisions To Others 'who Know More About It Than We Do.
War
Humility
Eye
Words Are As Strong And Powerful As Bombs, As Napalm.
Strong
Powerful
Reality
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.
Philosophy
Sublime
Stronger
If You Have Two Coats, One Of Them Belongs To The Poor.
Two
Coats
Poor
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.
Nice
Writing
Knitting
If You Are Rushed For Time, Sow Time And You Will Reap Time. Go To Church And Spend A Quiet Hour In Prayer. You Will Have More Time Than Ever And Your Work Will Get Done. Sow Time With The Poor. Sit And Listen To Them, Give Them Your Time Lavishly. You Will Reap Time A Hundredfold.
Prayer
Giving
Church
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.
Morning
Angel
Night
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.
Sympathy
Brother
Believe
We Must Talk About Poverty, Because People Insulated By Their Own Comfort Lose Sight Of It.
Sight
People
Comfort
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.
Strong
Pride
Men
The Best Thing To Do With The Best Things In Life Is To Give Them Up.
Inspirational
Life
Christian
The Only Answer In This Life, To The Loneliness We Are All Bound To Feel, Is Community.
Loneliness
Community
Answers
This Is So Rich A Country That Luxury Has Developed At The Expense Of Necessities, And Even The Destitute Partake Of The Luxury. We Are The Rich Country Of The World, Like Dives At The Feast. We Must Try Hard, We Must Study To Be Poor Like Lazarus At The Gate, Who Was Taken Into Abraham's Bosom.
Country
Taken
Luxury
We Should Live In Such A Way That Our Lives Wouldn't Make Much Sense If The Gospel Were Not True.
Way
Should
Our Lives
We Cannot Build Up The Idea Of The Apostolate Of The Laity Without The Foundation Of The Liturgy.
Ideas
Foundation
Liturgy
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.
Spiritual
Reading
Night
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.
Giving Up
Bears
Injustice
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.
Heart
Blood
Pieces
I Really Only Love God As Much As I Love The Person I Love The Least.
Women
History
God Love
Our Rule Is The Works Of Mercy... It Is The Way Of Sacrifice, Worship, A Sense Of Reverence.
Sacrifice
Way
Worship
The Only Solution Is Love.
Love
Solutions
When You Love People, You See All The Good In Them, All The Christ In Them. God Sees Christ, His Son, In Us And Loves Us. And So We Should See Christ In Others, And Nothing Else, And Love Them. There Can Never Be Enough Of It. There Can Never Be Enough Thinking About It.
Son
Thinking
People
Thank God That He Has Permitted Us To Live Among The Present Problems. It Is No Longer Permitted To Anyone To Be Mediocre.
Thank God
Problem
Mediocre
The Communists In Cuba Didn't Assist Castro In His Revolution. They Weren't On The Side Of The Students. They Didn't Do Anything To Help In The Invasion Or The Long-continuing Struggle From The Oriente Province Down.
Struggle
Long
Revolution
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.
Ponds
Deeds
Want
It Is Only Through Religion That Communism Can Be Achieved, And Has Been Achieved Over And Over.
Communism
Has Beens
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.
Heart
Oasis
Cells
If You Feed The Poor, You're A Saint. If You Ask Why They're Poor, You're A Communist.
Saint
Communist
Poor
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!
Thinking
Understanding
Faults
Where Are The Heroes And The Saints, Who Keep A Clear Vision Of Man's Greatest Gift, His Freedom, To Oppose Not Only The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, But Also The Dictatorship Of The Benevolent State, Which Takes Possession Of The Family, And Of The Indigent, And Claims Our Young For War?
War
Hero
Men
Those Who Cannot See Christ In The Poor Are Atheists Indeed.
Atheist
Atheism
Christ
We Want No Revolution; We Want The Brotherhood Of Men. We Want Men To Love One Another. We Want All Men To Have What Is Sufficient For Their Needs. And Now - Strange Thought - The Devil Has So Maneuvered That The People Turn From Him Because Those Who Profess Him Are Clothed In Soft Raiment And Sit At Well-spread Tables And Deny The Poor.
Men
Brotherhood Of Man
People
Tradition! We Scarcely Know The Word Anymore. We Are Afraid To Be Either Proud Of Our Ancestors Or Ashamed Of Them. We Scorn Nobility In Name And In Fact. We Cling To A Bourgeois Mediocrity Which Would Make It Appear We Are All Americans, Made In The Image And Likeness Of George Washington.
Names
Mediocrity
Proud
The Holy Man Was The Whole Man, The Man Of Integrity, Who Not Only Tried To Change The World, But To Live In It As It Was.
Integrity
Men
World
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?
Prayer
Believe
People
God Forbid We Should Have Great Institutions. The Thing Is To Have Many Small Centres. The Ideal Is Community.
Should Have
Community
Institutions
When It Comes To Labor And Politics, I Am Inclined To Be Sympathetic To The Left, But When It Comes To The Catholic Church, Then I Am Far To The Right.
Catholic
Church
Sympathetic
The Sexual Revolution Is A Complete Rebellion Against Authority, Natural And Supernatural, Even Against The Body And Its Needs, Its Natural Functions Of Child Bearing. This Is Not Reverence For Life, It Is A Great Denial And More Resembles Nihilism Than The Revolution That They Think They Are Furthering.
Children
Thinking
Nihilism
Don't Call Me A Saint; I Don't Want To Be Dismissed So Easily.
Motivational
Success
Saint
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