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. Daniel Berrigan More Quotes by Daniel Berrigan More Quotes From Daniel Berrigan 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. Daniel Berrigan eye men peace One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better Daniel Berrigan inability favors may Faith is rarely where your head is at. Nor is it where your heart is at. Faith is where your ass is at! Daniel Berrigan ass heart 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. Daniel Berrigan curiosity ties war If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood. Daniel Berrigan friday looks jesus Instead of building the peace by attacking injustices like starvation, disease, illiteracy, political and economic servitude, we spend a trillion dollars on war since 1946, until hatred and conflict have become the international preoccupation. Daniel Berrigan hatred justice war Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children. How many must die before our voices are heard, how many must be tortured, dislocated, starved, maddened? When, at what point, will you say no to this war? Daniel Berrigan war peace children 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. Daniel Berrigan widows-and-orphans smart war Start with the impossible. Proceed calmly towards the improbable. No worry, there are at least five exits. Daniel Berrigan exit impossible worry But how shall we educate men to goodness, to a sense of one another, to a love of truth? And more urgently, how shall we do this in a bad time? Daniel Berrigan bad-times goodness men The gift we can offer others is so simple a thing as hope. Daniel Berrigan offers hopeful simple 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. Daniel Berrigan heart war peace One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. Daniel Berrigan seems impossible peace I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits childred to be destroyed. Daniel Berrigan permit attitude religion 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. Daniel Berrigan army compassion war Because success is such a weasel word anyway, it's such a horribly American word, and it's such a vamp and, I think it's a death trap. Daniel Berrigan weasels congratulations thinking No principle is worth the sacrifice of a single human being. Daniel Berrigan sacrifice humans principles The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers. Daniel Berrigan those-who-lie peace lying 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. Daniel Berrigan fate friendship believe You have to struggle to stay alive and be of use as long as you can. Daniel Berrigan use struggle long
