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.
Dorothy DayRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Dorothy Day critiques societal attitudes towards the poor and vulnerable, equating abortion and birth control with genocide.
In this quote, Dorothy Day emphasizes the severity of addressing the issue of genocide, extending the term beyond traditional definitions to include systemic oppression through birth control and abortion. She argues that societal solutions to perceived overpopulation among the poor are reminiscent of genocidal ideologies, highlighting a moral obligation to protect the lives of the disenfranchised rather than eliminate them.
Themes
GenocideAbortionBirth ControlSocial JusticePovertyHuman Rights
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social justice, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of protecting vulnerable populations.
More from Dorothy Day
All quotes →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 DayRead
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.
Dorothy DayRead
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.
Dorothy DayRead
The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures.
Dorothy DayRead
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.
Dorothy DayRead
Similar quotes
It's hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. WhiteRead
A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection - not an invitation for hypnosis.
Umberto EcoRead
For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.
Noam ChomskyRead
The future doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is now and our memory of what happened in the past. But because we invented the idea of a future, we're the only animal that realized we can affect the future by what we do today.
David SuzukiRead
Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
Nothing causes us to so nearly resemble God as the forgiveness of injuries.
Saint John ChrysostomRead