Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

278 Sourced Quotes

Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed through intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died.

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Sanctification means that the Christians have been judged already, and that they are being preserved until the coming of Christ and are ever advancing towards it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The church…is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The 'polymath' had already died out by the close of the eighteenth century, and in the following century intensive education replaced extensive, so that by the end of it the specialist had evolved. The consequence is that today everyone is a mere technician, even the artist.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus is there only for others…God in human form! not…in the Greek divine-human form of 'man in himself', but 'the man for others', and therefore the crucified.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. If any member refuses to bear that burden, he denies the law of Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy...He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Who am I? this or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army fleeing
in disorder from a victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
What is happiness and unhappiness? It depends so little on the circumstances; it depends really only on what happens inside a person. I am grateful for every day and that makes me happy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all worry, and anxiety flee before him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian's duty to bear.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things to govern your soul and your senses... only through discipline may a man learn to be free.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to accept suffering as free, responsible men.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self- satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Right speech comes out of silence and right silence comes out of speech.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus says that every Christian has his own cross waiting for him, a cross destined and appointed by God. Each must endure his allotted share of suffering and rejection. But each has a different share: some God deems worthy of the highest form of suffering, and gives them the grace of martyrdom, while others he does not allow to be tempted above that which they are able to bear. But it is the one and the same cross in every case.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer