85 Best Dorothy Day Quotes From The American Journalist And Social Activist

Dorothy Day was an American social activist, journalist with a political radical in Catholic Church.

Being a Catholic convert, Dorothy Day was important because of her ways of integrating social activism and Catholic religious traditions. She is also referred to as 'Servant Of God' or 'Saint' by the Church for her best efforts in the Catholic Worker Movement.

Dorothy Day was known to stand for the underprivileged, where she believed in educating others about social injustices and live without violence.

She helped create and reform social structures for the Catholic workers even more after becoming a Catholic convert herself. Today, people worldwide know her for her social justice campaigns, the greatest challenge as she stood in defense of the poor, homeless, forsaken, and hungry.

Dorothy Day being such an influential social activist, author, saint.

One famous Dorothy Day quote goes like this; "People say, 'What is the sense of our small effort?' They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time."

Below is a list of her best civil disobedience quotes, catholic quotes about love, or love and justice quotes, and more from her experiences through Dorothy Day 'The Long Loneliness' quotes like, "We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community."

If you get inspired by social activist tasks, you'd surely love these [activist quotes] and Catholic quotes.

Dorothy Day Famous Catholic Quotes

Being a Catholic convert, most of the Dorothy Day quotes focus on the revolution of the heart. This list of Dorothy Day quotes will get the thought of 'judge only their actions' while serving God.

1. "If I have achieved anything in my life, it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God."

- Dorothy Day.

2. "Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor."

- Dorothy Day.

3. "With prayer, one can go on cheerfully and even happily. Without prayer, how grim a journey!"

- Dorothy Day.

4. "Common sense in religion is rare, and we are too often trying to be heroic instead of just ordinarily good and kind."

- Dorothy Day.

5. "When they call you a saint, it means basically that you are not to be taken seriously."

- Dorothy Day.

6. "The holy man was the whole man who not only tried to change the world but to live in it as it was."

- Dorothy Day.

7. "God meant for things to be much easier than we have made them."

- Dorothy Day.

8. "The basis of the liturgical movement is prayer, the liturgical prayer of the church."

- Dorothy Day.

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

- Dorothy Day.

10. "The cross is there, of course, but in the cross is the joy of spirit."

- Dorothy Day.

11. "Dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other."

- Dorothy Day.

12. "I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

- Dorothy Day.

13. "Everything a baptized person does should be directly or indirectly related to the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy."

- Dorothy Day.

14. "Since when are words the only acceptable form of prayer?"

- Dorothy Day.

15. "Obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history."

- Dorothy Day.

16. "One of the disconcerting facts about the spiritual life is that God takes you at your word."

- Dorothy Day.

17. "It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over."

- Dorothy Day.

18. "When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them."

- Dorothy Day.

19. "Our faith is stronger than death, our philosophy is firmer than flesh."

- Dorothy Day.

20. "Freedom has its roots in religion."

- Dorothy Day.

21. "Think what the world could look like if we took care of the poor as we do our Bibles!"

- Dorothy Day.

Dorothy Day Quotes As An Author

If you like an author, their journey has so much inspiration for the readers in the world. These Day quotes start with each one of us feeling inspired today as an author.

22. "It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again."

- Dorothy Day.

23. "Spend some time reading good books. They tell too of days of striving and of strife."

- Dorothy Day.

24. "We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community."

- Dorothy Day, 'The Long Loneliness', 1952.

25. "You can spend your time agonizing or organizing."

- Dorothy Day.

26. "Recording happiness made it last longer often we settled some problem which beset us even while we wrote about it."

- Dorothy Day.

27. "The work is more important than the talking and the writing about the work."

- Dorothy Day.

28. "People, wherever they are, can make a community."

- Dorothy Day.

29. "Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one."

- Dorothy Day.

30. "The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up."

- Dorothy Day.

31. "We must always aim for the impossible; if we lower our goal, we also diminish our effort."

- Dorothy Day.

Best Social Activist Quotes By Dorothy Day

"Don't call me a saint, I don't want to be dismissed so easily" is what Dorothy Day would say as she had heart and revolution while living. The quotes below helped bring about a revolution by the social activist.

32. "We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it."

- Dorothy Day.

33. "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself."

- Dorothy Day.

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

- Dorothy Day.

35. "I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor."

- Dorothy Day.

36. "Charity is only as warm as those who administer it."

- Dorothy Day.

37. "Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth."

- Dorothy Day.

38. "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?"

- Dorothy Day.

39. "It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living."

- Dorothy Day.

40. "If you are going to try and change things, you had better have your wits about you."

- Dorothy Day.

41. "It is people who are important, not the masses."

- Dorothy Day.

42. "No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do."

- Dorothy Day.

43. "Communities are made up of the unlovable as well as the lovable."

- Dorothy Day.

44. "We must turn the other cheek, give up our cloak, go a second mile."

- Dorothy Day.

45. "Poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter.."

- Dorothy Day.

46. "Our rule is the works of mercy. It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence."

- Dorothy Day.

47. "We must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions."

- Dorothy Day.

Dorothy Day Quotes On 'Challenge Of The Day' In Journalism

People say it's easy to talk and judge but it is best to disregard their social order talk. The Catholic convert and author Day quotes below are too good not to like.

48. "Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

- Dorothy Day.

49. "Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society."

- Dorothy Day.

50. "Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm."

- Dorothy Day.

51. "My radical associates were the ones who were in the forefront of the struggle for a better social order."

- Dorothy Day.

52. "We need to change the system."

- Dorothy Day.

53. "The legal battle against segregation is won, but the community battle goes on."

- Dorothy Day.

54. "Idealism in the young, I guess I'm saying, is curiosity as well as goodness trying to express itself."

- Dorothy Day.

55. "If you feed the poor, you're a saint. If you ask why they're poor, you're a Communist."

- Dorothy Day.

56. "Man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action."

- Dorothy Day.

57. "My very life is a protest. Against government."

- Dorothy Day.

58. "Too much praise makes you feel you must be doing something terribly wrong."

- Dorothy Day.

59. "You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know when it's right."

- Dorothy Day.

Dorothy Day Quotes On Love

If you too have long since come to believe that people never mean half the stuff they say, get your eyes on this author Dorothy Day quotes that you'd want to say to your loved one.

60. "Love in action is harsh and dreadful when compared to love in dreams."

- Dorothy Day.

61. "We certainly can try to grow in love, and it is good practice."

- Dorothy Day.

62. "We believe in loving our brothers regardless of race, color, or creed."

- Dorothy Day.

63. "I learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community."

- Dorothy Day.

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

- Dorothy Day.

65. "The only thing we can do about people is to love them."

- Dorothy Day.

66. "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 Day.

67. "If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other's faults and burdens."

- Dorothy Day.

68. "Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up."

- Dorothy Day.

69. "An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love."

- Dorothy Day.

70. "The final word is love."

- Dorothy Day.

71. "It is much happier and more enlivening to love than to be loved."

- Dorothy Day.

Dorothy Day Quotes About Living

Being a Catholic convert changed Dorothy a lot. This author quote-list below is inspiring for those who want to choose the path of being a Catholic convert. These quotes talk about her principles in life.

72. "Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul."

- Dorothy Day.

73. "We should live in such a way that our lives wouldn't make much sense if the gospel were not true."

- Dorothy Day.

74. "It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight."

- Dorothy Day.

75. "There is plenty to do, for each one of us, working on our own hearts, changing our own attitudes, in our own neighborhoods."

- Dorothy Day.

76. "You see I'm such a fool that I'm never afraid of appearing foolish."

- Dorothy Day.

77. "The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community."

- Dorothy Day.

78. "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."

- Dorothy Day.

79. "A conversion is a lonely experience."

- Dorothy Day.

80. "Women think with their whole bodies and they see things as a whole more than men do."

- Dorothy Day.

81. "We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy, and doubt."

- Dorothy Day.

82. "We are not, most of us, capable of exalted emotion, save rarely."

- Dorothy Day.

83. "The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life."

- Dorothy Day.

84. "When it comes to labor and politics, I am inclined to be sympathetic to the left."

- Dorothy Day.

85. "Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair."

- Dorothy Day.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Dorothy Day quotes then why not take a look at [activist quotes] and [Catholic quotes].

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