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
The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting the prisoner. But we are destroying crops, setting fire to entire villages and to the people in them. We are not performing the works of mercy but the works of war.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts acts of kindness with the devastation caused by war.
Dorothy Day highlights the stark opposition between humanitarian acts, such as feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, and the destructive actions taken during war. She underscores a moral imperative to choose mercy over violence, urging society to reflect on its choices that lead to suffering instead of compassion.
Themes
MercyWarKindnessHumanityCompassion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for humanitarian aid in war-torn regions.
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.
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The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures.
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.
Dorothy DayRead
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