Martin Luther Quotes

359 Sourced Quotes

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that a good man is more worthy of love than a bad one.

Martin Luther
God is not a God of sadness, death, etc., but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy, and so the Scriptures often say that we should rejoice... A Christian should and must be a cheerful person.

Martin Luther
Oh! how great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God! With that we may at all times feel joyous and secure; we need never be in want of consolation, for we see before us, in all its brightness, the pure and right way.

Martin Luther
Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace to idolatry.

Martin Luther
The Devil can so completely assume the human form, when he wants to deceive us, that we may well lie with what seems to be a woman, of real flesh and blood, and yet all the while 'tis only the Devil in the shape of a woman. 'Tis the same with women, who may think that a man is in bed with them, yet 'tis only the Devil; and...the result of this connection is oftentimes an imp of darkness, half mortal, half devil...

Martin Luther
This is true faith, a living confidence in the goodness of God.

Martin Luther
Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the way of the Sacramentarians, nor sat in the seat of the Zwinglians, nor followed the Council of the Zurichers.

Martin Luther
If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much?... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy.

Martin Luther
We must make a great difference between God's Word and the word of man. A man's word is a little sound, that flies into the air, and soon vanishes; but the Word of God is greater than heaven and earth, yea, greater than death and hell, for it forms part of the power of God, and endures everlastingly.

Martin Luther
You must learn that if you are a Christian, you will without a doubt experience all kinds of opposition and evil inclinations in the flesh. For when you have faith, there will be a hundred more evil thoughts and a hundred more temptations than before.

Martin Luther
For it is a horrible blasphemy to imagine that there is any work by which you should presume to pacify God, since you see that there is nothing which is able to pacify Him but this inestimable price, even the death and the blood of the Son of God, one drop of which is more precious than the whole world.

Martin Luther
If I had power over the Jews, as our princes and cities have, I would deal severely with their lying mouth

Martin Luther
This is the good and happy news, that Christ has paid for our sin, and through His suffering has redeemed us from eternal death. It is His kingdom and His ministry, to preach the Gospel to the poor; that is His purpose. For to the great and holy He cannot come. They do not wish to be counted sinners, and therefore do not need His Gospel.

Martin Luther
A fiery shield is God's Word; of more substance and purer than gold, which, tried in the fire, loses nought of its substance, but resists and overcomes all the fury of the fiery heat; even so, he that believes God's Word overcomes all, and remains secure everlastingly, against all misfortunes; for this shield fears nothing, neither hell nor the devil.

Martin Luther
Pure Christian love is not derived from the merit of the object.

Martin Luther
I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting.

Martin Luther
That which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man's true character, make him drunk.

Martin Luther
The prosperity of a country depends, not on the abundance of its revenues, nor on the strength of its fortifications, nor on the beauty of its public buildings; but it consists in the number of its cultivated citizens, in its men of education, enlightenment and character.

Martin Luther
Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.

Martin Luther
[Our] plan is to follow the example of the prophets and the ancient fathers of the church, and to compose psalms...so that the Word of God may be among the people also in the form of music.

Martin Luther
Singing has nothing to do with the affairs of this world: it is not for the law. Singers are merry, and free from sorrows and cares.

Martin Luther
One is not righteous who does much, but the one who, without work, believes much in Christ. The law says, 'Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'Believe in this,' and everything is already done.

Martin Luther
Christ will remain a priest and king; though He was never consecrated by any papist bishop or greased by any of those shavelings; but he was ordained and consecrated by God Himself, and by Him anointed.

Martin Luther
To preach Christ is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save it, if it believes the preaching.

Martin Luther
How rich a God our God is! He gives enough, but we don't notice it. He gave the whole world to Adam, but this was nothing in Adam's eyes; he was concerned about one tree and had to ask why God had forbidden him to eat it.

Martin Luther
The world doesn't want to be punished. It wants to remain in darkness. It doesn't want to be told that what it believes is false. If you also don't want to be corrected, then you might as well leave the church and spend your time at the bar and brothel. But if you want to be saved-and remember that there's another life after this one-you must accept correction.

Martin Luther
I did not learn my theology all at once, but had to search constantly deeper and deeper for it. My temptations did that for me, for no one can understand Holy Scripture without practice and temptations...I t is not by reading, writing, or speculation that one becomes a theologian. Nay, rather, it is living, dying, and being damned that makes one a theologian.

Martin Luther
How often have not the demons called 'Nix,' drawn women and girls into the water, and there had commerce with them, with fearful consequences.

Martin Luther
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.

Martin Luther