Quite clearly, the one thing the dominant culture cannot tolerate or co-opt is compassion, the ability to stand in solidarity with the victims of the present order. It can manage charity and good intentions, but it has no way to resist solidarity with pain or grief. So

Faith is both the conviction that justice can be accomplished and the refusal to accept injustice.

Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean it more.

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.

Christians today, no less than people of other faiths, are caught between pervasive apathy and acts of violence, apathy born of hopelessness about the enormity of the evils that confront us and recourse to violence and coercion that seriously compromises or even destroys the goals of a better future. Either way, we can close off the future to which we are directed by God our creator and redeemer.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

Break the arm of the wicked man; call the evildoer to account for his wickedness that would not be found out. The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror. Psalm 10:15—18, NIV

Not satisfied with endlessly pulling drowning men from the torrents rushing past, Day went upstream to see who was throwing the poor bastards into the water in the first place—and

Respect for everyone he met. The preference of service over power. The rejection of violence. Israel—its Law and worship—as the primal source of meaning.