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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.
-Dorothy Day
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I Have Been Disillusioned,

Dorothy Day
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "i have been disillusioned, however, this long, long time in the means..."

This quote by Dorothy Day reflects deeply on the theme of mean. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mean, Long, Saint, 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 mean and long. 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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Mean
Long
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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.
War
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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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Every Marxist Group That I've Known Has Its Theoreticians.
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It Is Penance To Work, To Give Oneself To Others, To Endure The Pinpricks Of Community Living.
Peace
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It Is Best To Disregard Their Talk And Judge Only Their Actions.
Judging
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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.
Inspirational
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With Prayer, One Can Go On Cheerfully And Even Happily. Without Prayer, How Grim A Journey!
Prayer
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The Only Way To Live In Any True Security Is To Live So Close To The Bottom That When You Fall You Do Not Have Far To Drop, You Do Not Have Much To Lose.
Fall
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Bottom
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
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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.
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When You Love People, You See All The Good In Them, All The Christ In Them.
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If You Are Going To Try And Change Things, You Had Better Have Your Wits About You.
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Do Not Give To The Poor Expecting To Get Their Gratitude So That You Can Feel Good About Yourself. If You Do, Your Giving Will Be Thin And Short-lived, And That Is Not What The Poor Need; It Will Only Improvish Them Further. Give Only If You Have Something You Must Give; Give Only If You Are Someone For Whom Giving Is Its Own Reward.
Gratitude
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Recording Happiness Made It Last Longer, We Felt, And Recording Sorrow Dramatized It And Took Away Its Bitterness; And Often We Settled Some Problem Which Beset Us Even While We Wrote About It.
Sorrow
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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
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How Necessary It Is To Cultivate A Spirit Of Joy. It Is A Psychological Truth That The Physical Acts Of Reverence And Devotion Make One Feel Devout. The Courteous Gesture Increases One's Respect For Others. To Act Lovingly Is To Begin To Feel Loving, And Certainly To Act Joyfully Brings Joy To Others Which In Turn Makes One Feel Joyful. I Believe We Are Called To The Duty Of Delight.
Kindness
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The Final Word Is Love.
Finals
Final Words
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.
Hands
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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
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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.
Love Is
Men
People
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.
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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'.
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Heart
Passion
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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It Wasn't Until Castro Marched Triumphantly Into Cuba That You Might Say The Whole Thing Grew Into A Marxist Revolution.
Cuba
Might
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Our Rule Is The Works Of Mercy... It Is The Way Of Sacrifice, Worship, A Sense Of Reverence.
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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.
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Heart
When They Call You A Saint, It Means Basically That You Are Not To Be Taken Seriously.
Taken
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People, Wherever They Are, Can Make A Community.
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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.
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Dear God, Please Enlarge Our Hearts To Love Each Other, To Love Our Neighbor, To Love Our Enemy As Well As Our Friend.
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How Much Did I Hear Of Religion As A Child? Very Little, And Yet My Heart Leaped When I Heard The Name Of God. I Do Believe Every Soul Has A Tendency Toward God.
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Children
Believe
We Are Not, Most Of Us, Capable Of Exalted Emotion, Save Rarely.
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Capable
Communities Are Made Up Of The Unlovable As Well As The Lovable.
Community
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If You Have Two Coats, One Of Them Belongs To The Poor.
Two
Coats
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The Only Answer In This Life, To The Loneliness We Are All Bound To Feel, Is Community.
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Community
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Be Close Enough To People So That You Are Indifferent To The Material. And Also Have Faith.
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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!
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Certainly We Disagree With The Communist Party, As We Disagree With Other Political Parties Who Are Trying To Maintain The American Way Of Life.
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The Only Solution Is Love.
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The Anarchist Philosophy Is That The New Social Order Is To Be Built Up By Groupings Of Men Together In Communities - Whether In Communities Of Work Or Communities Of Culture Or Communities Of Artists - But In Communities.
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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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We Have All Probably Noted Those Sudden Moments Of Quiet - Those Strange And Almost Miraculous Moments In The Life Of A Big City When There Is A Cessation Of Traffic Noise - Just An Instant When There Is Only The Sound Of Footsteps Which Serves To Emphasize A Sudden Peace. During Those Seconds It Is Possible To Notice The Sunlight, To Notice Our Fellow Humans, To Take Breath.
Cities
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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.
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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.
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Thinking
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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.
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Freedom Has Its Roots In Religion.
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I Think Anarchy Is Natural To The Catholic. The Church Is Pretty Anarchistic, You Know. Who Pays Attention To The Pope Or The Cardinals?
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There Is Something So Horrifying And So Sad When People Are Living Alone. That Is Why The Old And Lonely Come To Us.
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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.
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If You Feed The Poor, You're A Saint. If You Ask Why They're Poor, You're A Communist.
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God Meant For Things To Be Much Easier Than We Have Made Them
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We Also Know That Religion, As The Marxists Have Always Insisted, Has, Too Often, Like An Opiate, Tended To Put People To Sleep To The Reality And The Need For The Present Struggle For Peace And Justice.
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We Cannot Love God Unless We Love Each Other, And To Love We Must Know Each Other. We Know Him In The Breaking Of Bread, And We Know Each Other In The Breaking Of Bread, And We Are Not Alone Anymore. Heaven Is A Banquet And Life Is A Banquet, Too, Even With A Crust, Where There Is Companionship.
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Bread
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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.
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Food For The Body Is Not Enough. There Must Be Food For The Soul.
Food
Soul
Body
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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Voluntary Poverty Isn't Going Around With Some Burlap Bag Around You And Imitating The Poor. It Means Being Indifferent To The Material, Doing As Christ Said. He Went And Sat Down With The Rich And Zachaeus And Publicans And Sinners.
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Your Love For God Is Only As Great As The Love You Have For The Person You Love The Least.
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Persons
Women Think With Their Whole Bodies And They See Things As A Whole More Than Men Do.
Strong Women
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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.
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It's Godlike To Love Man - Even In His Sin - Merely Because He's Man.
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We Must Always Aim For The Impossible; If We Lower Our Goal, We Also Diminish Our Effort.
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You Will Know Your Vocation By The Joy That It Brings You. You Will Know. You Will Know When It's Right.
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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.
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To Me, Birth Control And Abortion Are Genocide.i Say, Make Room For Children, Don't Do Away With Them.
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Whatever I Had Read As A Child About The Saints Had Thrilled Me. I Could See The Nobility Of Giving One's Life For The Sick, The Maimed, The Leper. But There Was Another Question In My Mind. Why Was So Much Done In Remedying The Evil Instead Of Avoiding It In The First Place? Where Were The Saints To Try To Change The Social Order, Not Just To Minister To The Slaves, But To Do Away With Slavery?
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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?
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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.
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Long
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No Matter How Corrupt The Church May Become, It Carries Within It The Seeds Of Its Own Regeneration.
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God Forbid We Should Have Great Institutions. The Thing Is To Have Many Small Centres. The Ideal Is Community.
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We Need To Change The System. We Need To Overthrow, Not The Government, As The Authorities Are Always Accusing The Communists 'of Conspiring To Teach [us] To Do,' But This Rotten, Decadent, Putrid Industrial Capitalist System Which Breeds Such Suffering In The Whited Sepulcher Of New York.
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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.
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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
There Could Be A 'community Of Communities' Rather Than A State. They Would Be United In Some Way But Without Any Governing Body. It Would Be Made Up Of Unions, Credit Unions Instead Of Banks. There Would Be No More Lending At Interest. There Would Be No More Money Lenders.
Community
Unions
Way
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.
Book
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Men
We Are All One Body, We Are All One.
Body
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.
Party
Rejection
Movement
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
The Work Is More Important Than The Talking And The Writing About The Work.
Writing
Talking
Important
The Idea That When The Health Of One Member Suffers, The Health Of The Whole Body Is Lowered Is A Teaching Of St Paul Which Is Timeless.
Teaching
Ideas
Suffering
I Firmly Believe That Our Salvation Depends On The Poor.
Believe
Poor
Salvation
As Dostoevski Said: 'love In Action Is A Harsh And Dreadful Thing Compared With Love In Dreams.
Relationship
Dream
Action
Together With The Works Of Mercy, Feeding, Sheltering, And Clothing Our Brothers, We Must Indoctrinate.
Brother
Together
Mercy
Christ Is God Or He Is The World's Greatest Liar And Imposter.
Jesus
Liars
World
Life Itself Is A Haphazard, Untidy, Messy Affair.
Affair
Messy
Haphazard
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
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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War
Believe
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
When People Are Standing Up For Our Present Rotten System, They Are Being Worse Than Communists, It Seems To Me.
People
Rotten
Communist
Paperwork, Cleaning The House, Dealing With The Innumerable Visitors Who Come All Through The Day, Answering The Phone, Keeping Patience And Acting Intelligently, Which Is To Find Some Meaning In All That Happens-these Things, Too, Are The Works Of Peace, And Often Seem Like A Very Little Way.
Phones
House
Acting
You See I'm Such A Fool That I'm Never Afraid Of Appearing Foolish.
Fool
Foolish
Appearing
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.
Men
Giving
Vision
"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.
Faith
Heart
People
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
I Really Only Love God As Much As I Love The Person I Love The Least.
Women
History
God Love
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.
Love
Hope
Courage
They Cannot See That We Must Lay One Brick At A Time, Take One Step At A Time.
Progress
Bricks
Steps
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
What We Would Like To Do Is Change The World...by Crying Out Unceasingly For The Rights Of The Workers, Of The Poor, Of The Destitute. We Can Throw Our Pebble In The Pond And Be Confident That Its Ever Widening Circle Will Reach Around The World.
Rights
Circles
Ponds
Words Are As Strong And Powerful As Bombs, As Napalm.
Strong
Powerful
Reality
I Think That Just As We're In The Nuclear Era We're Also In An Era Of Non-violence. It's Undefeatable.
Thinking
Nuclear
Eras
The Mystery Of Poverty Is That By Sharing In It, Making Ourselves Poor In Giving To Others, We Increase Our Knowledge Of And Belief In Love.
Life
Giving
Poverty
The Saying Of Vatican Ii Is Above All, 'conscience Is Supreme.'
Vatican Ii
Supreme
Conscience
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
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.
Firsts
Speak
Conspiracy
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
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.
War
Nursing
Fire
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
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
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
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.
Thinking
Saint
Attention
It Is Only Through Religion That Communism Can Be Achieved, And Has Been Achieved Over And Over.
Communism
Has Beens
What Else Do We All Want, Each One Of Us, Except To Love And Be Loved, In Our Families, In Our Work, In All Our Relationships?
Family
Want
Our Relationship
The Gospel Takes Away Our Right Forever, To Discriminate Between The Deserving And The Undeserving Poor.
Forever
Poor
Undeserving
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?
Heart
Catholic
Challenges
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.
Powerful
Fighting
World
Charity Is Only As Warm As Those Who Administer It.
Charity
Warm
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.
Strength
Men
Society
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.
Strong
House
Support
Everything A Baptized Person Does Each Day Should Be Directly Or Indirectly Related To The Corporal And Spiritual Works Of Mercy.
Spiritual
Doe
Each Day
We Must Talk About Poverty, Because People Insulated By Their Own Comfort Lose Sight Of It.
Sight
People
Comfort
Poverty Is A Strange And Elusive Thing. ... I Condemn Poverty And I Advocate It; Poverty Is Simple And Complex At Once; It Is A Social Phenomenon And A Personal Matter. Poverty Is An Elusive Thing, And A Paradoxical One. We Need Always To Be Thinking And Writing About It, For If We Are Not Among Its Victims Its Reality Fades From Us. We Must Talk About Poverty Because People Insulated By Their Own Comfort Lose Sight Of It.
Writing
Simple
Reality
We Cannot Build Up The Idea Of The Apostolate Of The Laity Without The Foundation Of The Liturgy.
Ideas
Foundation
Liturgy
If We Love Each Other Enough, We Will Bear With Each Other’s Faults And Burdens.
Faults
Bears
Enough
The Sense Is Always That Community Is Natural To People.
People
Community
Natural
We're Living In An Age Of Genocide. ...and We Do Believe That There Is Not Only The Genocide Of War, And The Genocide That Took Place With The Extermination Of The Jews, But The Whole Program....of Birth Control And Abortion Is Another Form Of Genocide.... [t]hey Claim The Poor Are Bringing Forth Tremendous Numbers Of Children And So The Solution Is To Kill Them Off.
Children
War
Believe
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
So Many Sins Against The Poor Cry Out To High Heaven! One Of The Most Deadly Sins Is To Deprive The Laborer Of His Hire. There Is Another: To Instill In Him Paltry Desires So Compulsive That He Is Willing To Sell His Liberty And His Honor To Satisfy Them. We Are All Guilty Of Concupiscence, But Newspapers, Radios, Television, And Battalions Of Advertising Men (woe To That Generation!) Deliberately Stimulate Our Desires, The Satisfaction Of Which So Often Means The Degradation Of The Family.
Mean
Men
Heaven
One Of The Disconcerting Facts About The Spiritual Life Is That God Takes You At Your Word.
Spiritual
Facts
Life Is
Writing Is Hard Work. But If You Want To Become A Writer You Will Become One. Nothing Will Stop You.
Hard Work
Writing
Want
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
Two Years Ago, I Was Saying As I Planted Seeds In The Garden, "i Must Believe In These Seeds, That They Fall Into The Earth And Grow Into Flowers And Radishes And Beans." It Is A Miracle To Me Because I Do Not Understand It. The Very Fact That They Use Glib Technical Phrases Does Not Make It Any Less A Miracle, And A Miracle We All Accept. Then Why Not Accept God's Miracles?
Believe
Flower
Fall
The Legal Battle Against Segregation Is Won, But The Community Battle Goes On.
Community
Battle
Goes On
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
You Can Spend Your Time Agonizing Or Organizing.
Agonizing
Think What The World Could Look Like If We Took Care Of The Poor Even Half As Well As We Do Our Bibles!
Thinking
Looks
Half
Just As The Birds Of The Air Are Fed, We'll Continue To Be Fed.
Air
Bird
Feds
It Is People Who Are Important, Not The Masses.
People
Important
Mass
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.
Compassion
People
World
Too Much Praise Makes You Feel You Must Be Doing Something Terribly Wrong.
Too Much
Praise
Feels
Love Casts Out Fear, But We Have To Get Over The Fear In Order To Get Close Enough To Love Them.
Fear
Reality
Order
Some Can Go Further Than Others.
There Is Plenty To Do, For Each One Of Us, Working On Our Own Hearts, Changing Our Own Attitudes, In Our Own Neighborhoods.
Attitude
Heart
Neighborhood
There's Enough Hate In The World. I Command You To Love. And You Have To Make An Effort.
Hate
Effort
World
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
The Biggest Mistake Sometimes Is To Play Things Very Safe In This Life And End Up Being Moral Failures.
Mistake
Play
Safe
If I Did Not Believe, If I Did Not Make What Is Called An Act Of Faith (and Each Act Of Faith Increases Our Faith, And Our Capacity For Faith), If I Did Not Have Faith That The Works Of Mercy Do Lighten The Sum Total Of Suffering In The World, So That Those Who Are Suffering On Both Sides Of This Ghastly Struggle Somehow Mysteriously Find Their Pain Lifted And Some Balm Of Consolation Poured On Their Wounds, If I Did Not Believe These Things, The Problem Of Evil Would Indeed Be Overwhelming.
Pain
Believe
Struggle
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
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
Country
Brother
Women Think With Their Whole Bodies
Thinking
Body
Whole
We Certainly Can Try To Grow In Love, And It Is Good Practice, This Giving What We've Got, Whether It Is A Cup Of Coffee Or Money To Pay The Grocery Bill.
Coffee
Practice
Giving
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
Idealism In The Young, I Guess I'm Saying, Is Curiosity As Well As Goodness Trying To Express Itself.
Curiosity
Trying
Goodness
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.
Christian
People
Moral
What I Read In The Bible Seemed To Me To Be Very Much A Part Of Daily Life.
Daily Life
I Think One Of The Things We Must Constantly Keep In Mind Is, 'if Anybody Hits You On One Cheek, Turn The Other.'
Thinking
Mind
Turns
You Can't Write About Things Without Doing Them. You Just Have To Live That Same Way.
Writing
Way
It Is Not Easy Always To Be Joyful, To Keep In Mind The Duty Of Delight.
Joy
Mind
Delight
We Are All Called To Be Saints, St. Paul Says, And We Might As Well Get Over Our Bourgeois Fear Of The Name. We Might Also Get Used To Recognizing The Fact That There Is Some Of The Saint In All Of Us.
Names
Saint
Might
Often We Comfort Ourselves Only With Words, But If We Pray Enough, The Conviction Will Come Too That Christ Is Our King, Not Stalin, Bevins, Or Truman. That He Has All Things In His Hands, That 'all Things Work Together For Good For Those That Love Him.
Kings
Hands
Working Together
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.
People
Effort
Deeds
My Strength Returns To Me With My Cup Of Coffee And The Reading Of The Psalms.
Coffee
Reading
Cups
When It Comes Down To It, Even On The Natural Plane, It Is Much Happier And More Enlivening To Love Than To Be Loved.
Natural
Planes
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
A 'dictatorship Of The Proletariat' Becomes Again Another Dictator.
Dictator
Proletariat
Dictatorship
Man Is Not Meant To Live Alone.
Men
True Obedience Is A Matter Of Love, Which Makes It Voluntary, Not Compelled By Fear Or Force.
Children
Matter
Obedience
Our Problems Stem From Our Acceptance Of This Filthy, Rotten System.
Acceptance
Tyrants
Rotten
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 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.
Life
Forgiveness
Weed
Don't Worry About Being Effective. Just Concentrate On Being Faithful To The Truth.
Success
Effectiveness
Worry
Love And Ever More Love Is The Only Solution To Every Problem That Comes Up.
Love Is
Problem
Come Up
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
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
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.
Philosophy
Men
Views
We Have All Known The Long Loneliness, And We Have Found That The Answer Is Community.
Loneliness
Being Alone
Community Living
A Conversion Is A Lonely Experience.
Lonely
Conversion
Common Sense In Religion Is Rare, And We Are Too Often Trying To Be Heroic Instead Of Just Ordinarily Good And Kind.
Common Sense
Trying
Heroic
The Best Thing To Do With The Best Things In Life Is To Give Them Up.
Inspirational
Life
Christian
If I Have Achieved Anything In My Life, It Is Because I Have Not Been Embarrassed To Talk About God.
Faith
Inspiration
Embarrassed
No One Has A Right To Sit Down And Feel Hopeless. There's Too Much Work To Do.
Wisdom
Peace
Down And
We're Under Obligation To Love - That's The Commandment.
Obligation
Commandments
Those Who Cannot See Christ In The Poor Are Atheists Indeed.
Atheist
Atheism
Christ
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
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.
Husband
Children
Loneliness
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
Don't Call Me A Saint; I Don't Want To Be Dismissed So Easily.
Motivational
Success
Saint
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
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