Quotessence
Home / Authors / Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan

Daniel Berrigan Quotes

Priest

Filter quotes by topic

AllWarPeaceHumansKnowsOrderDiesEarthIfsImpossibleJesuit

Famous Daniel Berrigan Quotes

“Every nation-state tends towards the imperial - that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top.”

StatesLawOrderNationsSecretVirtueTaxesArmyPoliceCourtMythObediencePropagandaAssumptionJailTreatiesCivicsLaw And OrderSecret PoliceCivic Virtue
Book:The Nightmare of God: The Book of Revelation
Create image

“Every nation-state tends towards the imperial - that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. Still it should be said of the political left, we expect something better. And correctly. We put more trust in those who show a measure of compassion, who denounce the hideous social arrangements that make war inevitable and human desire omnipresent; which fosters corporate selfishness, panders to appetites and disorder, waste the earth.”

ShouldHumansSaidStillsWarStatesShowsEarthLawPoliticalDesireOrderLeftNationsSocialSecretCompassionVirtueTaxesWasteArmyPoliceCourtMythInevitableSelfishnessObedienceCorporatePropagandaAssumptionJailDisorderAppetiteArrangementsSomething BetterTreatiesCivicsHideousLaw And OrderSecret PoliceCivic Virtue
Author:Daniel Berrigan
Create image

“Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.”

MenLooksLittlesHelpingMightEyeFacesSufferingDiesCulturePeaceLosesPiecesWillingDiversitySocial JusticeMeetingsBreadHis EyesMaking A DifferencePeace And Justice
Author:Daniel Berrigan
Create image

“Because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total - but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.”

WantHeartWarHumanityCoursesPeaceHalfCowardice
Book:No Bars to Manhood: A powerful, personal statement on radical confrontation with contemporary society
Create image

“The sponsors of war closely resemble the weapons they create. And smart bombs, depleted uranium, land mines, rockets and tanks, rather than protect 'widows and orphans and strangers at the gate', are designed precisely to create 'widows and orphans', to transform strangers into enemies and enemies into corpses.”

WarEnemyLandMinesProtectWeaponsSmartStrangerBombsGatesCorpsesTanksRocketsWidowsOrphanDisarmamentSponsorsUraniumWidows And Orphans
Author:Daniel Berrigan
Create image

“Of course, let us have peace, we cry, "but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties ... " There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison, and death in its wake.”

KnowsWarCoursesLosesOur LivesCryPrisonCuriosityIllTiesMakersDisgraceDisruptionLiablePeacemakerDisruptiveNormalcy
Author:Daniel Berrigan
Create image

“For my part, I believe that the vain, glorious and the violent will not inherit the earth. . . . In pursuance of that faith my friends and I take the hands of the dying in our hands. And some of us travel to the Pentagon, and others live in the Bowery and serve there, and others speak unpopularly and plainly of the fate of the unborn and of convicted criminals. It is all one.”

BelieveHandsEarthBeliefSpeakI BelieveFriendshipFateDyingMy FriendsCriminalsViolentVainGloriousUnbornPentagon
Book:We Die Before We Live: Talking with the Very Ill
Create image