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Dorothy Day

37 quotes

“It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Union Square to Rome (1938)
“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Long Loneliness (1952), p. 286
“We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, 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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Lucchetti Bingemer, Maria Clara (2013) "The Witness of Dorothy Day and the Future of Liberation Theology," Diálogo: Vol. 16: No. 2, Article 3. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo/vol16/iss2…
“Now the creed to which I subscribe is like a battle cry, engraved on my heart - the Credo of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Before, in those former times, I could say, "I shall sleep in the dust: and if thou seek me in the morning, I shall not be" (Job 7:21). Now I can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God. Whom I myself shall see and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom" (Job 19:25-27).”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Union Square to Rome (1938), p. 145
“A Jewish convert said to me once, "The Communists hate God, and the Catholics love Him. But they are both facing Him, directing their attention to Him. They are not indifferent. Communists are not in so bad a case as those who are indifferent. It is the lukewarm that He will spew out of His mouth.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Union Square to Rome (1938)
“The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. 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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Catholic Worker (April 1964)
“We stand at the present time with the Communists, who are also opposing war.... The Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Our Stand," Catholic Worker (June 1940)
“There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Liberal-Socialist Alliance, New York City (8 December 1941), as quoted in From Megaphones to Microphones (2003) by Sandra J. Sarkela et al.
“We are not expecting Utopia here on this earth. But God meant things to be much easier than we have made them. A man has a natural right to food, clothing, and shelter. A certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life. A family needs work as well as bread. Property is proper to man. We must keep repeating these things. Eternal life begins now. "All the way to heaven is heaven, because He said, "I am the Way." The cross is there, of course, but "in the cross is joy of spirit." And love makes all things easy.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 18
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 126
“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 (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 127
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Incompatibility of Love and Violence," Catholic Worker (May 1951)
“But I am sure that God did not intend that there be so many poor. The class structure is of our making and our consent, not His. It is the way we have arranged it, and it is up to us to change it. So we are urging revolutionary change.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poverty Is to Care and Not to Care," Catholic Worker (April 1953)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (September 1956)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Month of the Dead," Catholic Worker (November 1959)
“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?”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Loaves and Fishes (1963)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (December 1968)
“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.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (January 1970)
“How many thousands, tens of thousands [of prisoners], are in for petty theft, while the 'robber barons' of our day get away with murder. Literally murder, accessories to murder. "Property is Theft." Proudhon wrote--The coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor. The early Fathers wrote--The house you don't live in, your empty buildings (novitiates, seminaries) belong to the poor. Property is Theft.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (December 1971)
“The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed in Time (29 December 1975)
“Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History (1997)
“The great work which is to be done is to change public opinion, to indoctrinate, to set small groups to work here and there in different cities who will live a life of sacrifice, typifying the Catholic idea of personal responsibility. Numbers and organizations are not important. We are just beginning after all. But one person can do a tremendous amount of boring from within, in his office, factory, neighborhood, parish, and among his daily acquaintances and associates.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All the Way to Heaven :The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day (2010), p. 81
“When people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 4 March 1945
“When Dr. Stern wanted to know whether I was an alcoholic, when Dwight Macdonald asked me seriously whether I drank longshoremen under the table — I can only confess that yes, I did "fling roses with the throng.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 22 April 1958
“The diocesan papers are full of stories about atrocities in China and the sufferings of the Church and I get a letter from Betty Chang from Tientsin about the communes and the full-employment, etc. When we see the migrant camps, and our factories in the fields, our system does not offer much.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 12 February 1959
“For some weeks now my problem is this: What to do about the open immorality (and of course I mean sexual morality) in our midst. It is like the last times--there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.... We have one young [prostitute], drunken, promiscuous, pretty as a picture, college educated, mischievous, able to talk her way out of any situation--so far. She comes to us when she is drunk and beaten and hungry and cold and when she is taken in, she is liable to crawl into the bed of any man on the place. We do not know how many she has slept with on the farm. What to do? What to do?”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 26 June 1971
“I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 8 August 1974
“[atomic bombs are] born not that men might live, but that men might be killed.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The papers list the scientists (the murderers) who are credited with perfecting this new weapon.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today's paper with its columns of description of the new era, the atomic era, which this colossal slaughter of the innocents has ushered in, is filled with stories covering every conceivable phase of the new discovery.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While here in the western hemisphere, we went in for precision bombing (what chance of precision bombing now?) while we went in for obliteration bombing, Russia was very careful not to bomb cities, to wipe out civilian populations. Perhaps she was thinking of the poor, of the workers, as brothers.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone says, "I wonder what the Pope thinks of it?" How everyone turns to the Vatican for judgment, even though they do not seem to listen to the voice there!”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had a conversation with John Spivak, the Communist writer, a few years ago, and he said to me, "How can you believe? How can you believe in the Immaculate Conception, in the Virgin birth, in the Resurrection?" I could only say that I believe in the Roman Catholic Church and all she teaches. I have accepted Her authority with my whole heart. At the same time I want to point out to you that we are taught to pray for final perseverance. We are taught that faith is a gift, and sometimes I wonder why some have it and some do not. I feel my own unworthiness and can never be grateful enough to God for His gift of faith. St. Paul tells us that if we do not correspond to the graces we receive, they will be withdrawn. So I believe also that we should walk in fear, "work out our salvation in fear and trembling.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Union Square to Rome (1938), pp. 144-45
“What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially … when more and more people, even priests, are turning to violence, and are finding their heroes in Camillo Torres among the priests, and Che Guevara among laymen. The attraction is strong, because both men literally laid down their lives for their brothers. "Greater love hath no man than this." "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Che Guevara wrote this, and he is quoted by Chicano youth in El Grito Del Norte.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage — Our Spring Appeal," Catholic Worker (May 1970)
“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. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U.S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103