Dorothy Day quotes

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Her dedication to social justice, pacifism, and aiding the poor made her a leading figure in 20th-century activism. She remains a profound influence on movements for peace and human dignity. Here are 82 of her quotes:

We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community. (Dorothy Day)
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? View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily. View quote
Dorothy Day
Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over. View quote
Dorothy Day
I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance. View quote
Dorothy Day
Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life. (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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
When people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
Our rule is the works of mercy... It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence. (Dorothy Day)
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. View quote
Dorothy Day
You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it's right. View quote
Dorothy Day
I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least. View quote
Dorothy Day
The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor. View quote
Dorothy Day