Dorothy Day

“No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.”

“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 b...”

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

“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?”

“Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”

“When it comes down to it, even on the natural plane, it is much happier and more enlivening to love than to be loved.”

“Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.”

“As Dostoevski said: 'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.”

“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.”

“Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life.”

“They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.”

“Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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, he...”

“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.”

“Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.”

“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.”

“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 co...”

“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 t...”