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Dorothy Day Quotes (1897-1980)
Author, Activist
About Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (8 November 1897 β 29 November 1980) was an American journalist turned social activist. A pacifist, anarchist and a devout member of the Catholic Church, she advocated distributism and was a co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker movement. She authored several books and spoke often in public about faith and social justice.
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βThe papers list the scientists (the murderers) who are credited with perfecting this new weapon.β
βWhen people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me.β
βI too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.β
βWe have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.β
βThe 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?β
βI 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.β
βOf 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.β
βIf 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.β
βToday'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.β
βWe stand at the present time with the Communists, who are also opposing war.... The Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.β
β When Dr. Stern wanted to know whether I was an alcoholic, when Dwight Macdonald asked me seriously whether I drank longshoremen under the table βΒ I can only confess that yes, I did "fling roses with the throng."β
βBut 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.β
β'''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.''''β
βwhile 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.β
βWe 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.β
βMy 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.β
β 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.β
βThe 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.β
Dorothy Day Quotes by Topic
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Dorothy Day on Love 2 quotes
βThe 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.β
Dorothy Day on Mercy
Dorothy Day on Christian anarchism
β"What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially [β¦] 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.β
Dorothy Day on Christian pacifism
β"What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially [β¦] 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.β
Quotes About Dorothy Day
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John Day on Dorothy Day
βDorothy, the oldest girl, is the nut of the family. When she came out of the university she was a Communist. Now she's a Catholic crusader. She owns and runs a Catholic paper and skyhoots all over the country, delivering lectures. She has one girl in a Catholic school and is separated from her husband.β
Dolores Huerta "Reflections on Revolutionary Women" on Dorothy Day
βWho is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana InΓ©s de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others.β
Howard Zinn on Dorothy Day
βDorothy Day lived a very simple life and believed in nonviolence.β
Source on Dorothy Day 9 quotes
βIn Floyd Dell's recollections, the Day of the Masses period was a heedless young freethinker, an adherent of the bohemian lifestyle.β
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Dorothy Day
About Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (8 November 1897 β 29 November 1980) was an American journalist turned social activist. A pacifist, anarchist and a devout member of the Catholic Church, she advocated distributism and was a co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker movement. She authored several books and spoke often in public about faith and social justice.