German Theologian Quotes

Martin Luther

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Meister Eckhart

Thomas à Kempis

Jakob Böhme

Martin Niemöller

Karl Rahner

Whatever man uses without the fear of God, whatever he applies to the mere gratifying of his flesh, cannot fail to operate as a poison to the soul, however pleasant and salutary it may appear to be to the body.

I only ask in all kindness that the man who wishes at this time to have my books will by no means let them be a hindrance to his own study of the Scriptures, but read them as I read the orders and the ordures of the pope and the books of the sophists.

We are the archenemy of our own salvation, and the Shepherd must fight first of all with us - for us.

Romano Guardini

The stinking puddle from which usury, thievery and robbery arises is our lords and princes. They make all creatures their property—the fish in the water, the birds in the air, the plant in the earth must all be theirs. Then they proclaim God's commandments among the poor and say, "You shall not steal." They oppress everyone, the poor peasant, the craftsman are skinned and scraped.

Thomas Müntzer

Over this period many issues have been clarified. Today we know very much more about these twenty-seven short writings from a little religious sub-culture in the Roman empire than ever before. Nevertheless, they risk being forgotten - partly because the link with the Christian history which they have influenced has been broken, partly because many of our educated contemporaries come from other religious and cultural traditions, and partly because the results of historical-critical research are so complex that many people are deterred from trying to grasp them.

People complain that our generation has no philosophers. They are wrong. They now sit in another faculty. Their names are Max Planck and Albert Einstein.

Adolf von Harnack

Theological condemnation of others, which breaks off fellowship in either judgment or contempt, is impermissible.

Ernst Käsemann

It is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true, or even probably; but it is enough if they provide a calculus which fits the observations.

Andreas Osiander

This book is dedicated to the memory of my teacher Rudolf Bultmann. He encouraged me more than thirty years ago to deal more intensively with the extra-canonical writings from the early Christian period. His unwavering insistence upon the consistent application of the historical-critical method and his emphasis upon the investigation of early Christian literature in the context of the history of religions must remain basic commitments of New Testament scholarship.

But there is yet another form of this hidden heresy, and, paradoxically, it can affect those who are proudest of their long-standing and unimpeachable orthodoxy; heresy in the form of indifference.

One thing is clear, the president of North Vietnam is not a fanatic. He is a very strong and determined man, but capable of listening, something that is very rare in a person of his position.

Martin Niemöller

The grave is a very small hillock, but we can see farther from it, when standing on it, than from the highest mountain in all the world.

Friedrich Tholuck

When God forgives us for hitting Him with a club we should manage to put up with the pin pricks we get from our fellows.

Helmut Thielicke

The stone which Jacob consecrated at Bethel the generation of the living continues to anoint, paying the tithes which of old he vowed to the house of God there.

Julius Wellhausen

Always in these matters desiring rather to be taught than to teach.

I must tell you, sir, that yesterday the pharisaical devil was let loose, cursed me and my little book, and condemned the book to the fire. He charged me with shocking vices; with being a scorner of both Church and Sacraments, and with getting drunk daily on brandy, wine, and beer; all of which is untrue; while he himself is a drunken man.

For Christ, both God and man, must lay hold on us in order that there may be a union between Him and us.

Martin Chemnitz

However important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage.

Samson Raphael Hirsch

The soul will bring forth Person if God laughs into her and she laughs back to him. To speak in parable, the Father laughs into the Son and the Son laughs back to the Father; and this laughter breeds liking and liking breeds joy, and joy begets love, and love begets Person, and Person begets the Holy Ghost.

Meister Eckhart

If you fall seventy times a day, rise seventy times and return to God so that you will not fall too often.

Johannes Tauler

Religion is immediate self-consciousness. It liberates the individual from the determinative forces of society . ... It is effective only in individuals, where "in-dividuals" means whose who are undivided, that is, who are liberated from the psychological, social, and logical consequences of the division of labor in society and who actually live concretely and historically, unfettered by abstract norms.

Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt

The Gospel does not require anything good that man must furnish: not a good heart, not a good disposition, no improvement of his condition, no godliness, no love either of God or men…….. It plants love into his heart and makes him capable of all good works. It demands nothing, but it gives all. Should not this fact make us leap for JOY?

C. F. W. Walther

Love wakes much and sleeps little and, in sleeping, does not sleep. It faints is not weary; it is restricted in its liberty and is great freedom. It sees reasons to fear and does not fear, but, like an ember or a spark of fire, flames always upward, by the fervor of its love, toward God, and through the special help of grace is delivered from all perils and dangers

Thomas à Kempis

The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred. For then it is not the disciple's own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

O, my God! withhold from me the wealth to which tears and sighs and curses cleave. Better none at all than wealth like that.

Christian Scriver