Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

God has prepared for Himself one great song of praise throughout eternity, and those who enter the c...

Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so wou...

What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one anot...

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy a...

Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.

But God does not neglect his lost creature. He plans to re-create his image in man, to recover his f...

Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.

An image needs a living object, and a copy can only be formed from a model. Either man models himsel...

No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is...

The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of J...

The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior m...

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.' Not only do ...

God sends his Son – here lies the only remedy. It is not enough to give man a new philosophy or bett...

It is a costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true...

Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.

Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest ...

The child asks of the Father whom he knows. Thus, the essence of Christian prayer is not general ado...

In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbour hostility against us, not those against whom ...

It is not at all surprising that the disciples imagined that the law had been abrogated, when Jesus ...

the world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.

Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing u...

To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegia...

And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Henceforth, an...

...do we realize that this cheap grace has turned back upon us like a boomerang? The price we are ha...

Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord wh...

Just as God's love entered the world, thereby submitting to the misunderstanding and ambiguity that ...

My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the...

Gideon conquers, the church conquers, we conquer, because faith conquers. But the victory belongs no...

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

May we be enabled to say "No" to sin and "Yes" to the sinner.

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ then we pray correctly.

Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us.

By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entit...

[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and rea...

[God says] Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend - it must transcend all comprehens...

If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh ...

So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always...

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is ...

If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, p...

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. I...

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt th...

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience...

It is not your love that sustains the marriage,but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love...

The more we have known of the really good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later litera...

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore...

Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from wor...

Freedom for the Church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise, it becomes arbitrarin...

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

[Paul] has no intention to instruct the Christian community about the task and responsibility of gov...

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive ...

Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of anoth...

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

After death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might.

One's task is not to turn the world upside down but to do what is necessary at the given place and ...

Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in ti...

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is on...

Lord, whatsoever this day may bring, Thy name be praised. Be gracious unto me and help me. Grant me ...

Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I ...

The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on ...

One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. On...

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to s...

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itse...

The author likens crisis, and particularly war, to stop motion photography in its capacity to make c...

Here all fear of one another, all timidity about praying freely in one's own words in the presence o...

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and f...

Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrou...

Action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.

We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of...

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiratio...

If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

If we are to pray aright perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not ...

I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak ...

Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the...

Over the years I have written many a letter for the wedding of one of the brothers and preached many...

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the t...

Jesus says to anyone who uses their faith or lack of faith to excuse their acts of disobedience to h...

Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; a...

Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in t...

The basis of spiritual community is truth, the basis of emotional community is desire.The exclusion ...

Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard pe...

If we would answer the question of the existence of the Evil then we would not be sinners, we could ...

Time is lost when we have not lived a full human life time unenriched by experience creative endea...

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience...

As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife that can...

God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream ...

Where a people prays, there is the hurch; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.

Is the invisible presence of the Christian fellowship a reality and a help to the individual? Is the...

God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not a...

While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes huma...

It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essent...

It is not that God's help and presence must still be proved in our life; rather God's presence and h...

We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exp...

We ought not to be in too much of a hurry here to speak piously of God’s will and guidance. It is ob...

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least ...

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have ...

The temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carri...

The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to...