Martin Luther Quotes

359 Sourced Quotes

The winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits. Hark! how the Devil is puffing and blowing...

Martin Luther
The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Hungry hearts appreciate Christ. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Christ's benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them.

Martin Luther
Without armaments peace cannot be kept; wars are waged not only to repel injustice but also to establish a firm peace.

Martin Luther
One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ.

Martin Luther
It is the most ungodly and dangerous business to abandon the certain and revealed will of God in order to search in to the hidden mysteries of God.

Martin Luther
When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it embraces all Heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a whisper.

Martin Luther
He who wholly renounces himself, and relies not on mere human reason, will make good progress in the Scriptures; but the world comprehends them not, from ignorance of that mortification which is the gift of God's word.

Martin Luther
Let us not flutter too high, but remain by the manger and the swaddling clothes of Christ, 'in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.'

Martin Luther
Farewell unhappy, hopeless, blasphemous Rome! The Wrath of God has come upon you, as you deserve. We cared for Babylon, and she is not healed; let us then leave her, that she may become the habitation of dragons, spectres, and witches.

Martin Luther
But know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor and do good to him in love, be it a child, wife, servant, enemy, friend....If you do not find yourself among the needy and the poor, where the Gospel shows us Christ, then you may know that your faith is not right, and that you have not yet tasted of Christ's benevolence and work for you.

Martin Luther
Truly speech has wonderful strength and power, that through a mere word, proceeding out of the mouth of a poor human creature, the devil, that so proud and powerful spirit, should be driven away, shamed and confounded.

Martin Luther
It is the nature of all hypocrites and false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist.

Martin Luther
To comfort a sorrowful conscience is much better than to possess many kngdoms; yet the world regards it not; nay, condemns it, calling us rebels, dissturbers of the peace.

Martin Luther
Therefore, when some say good works are forbidden when we preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: If you had health, you would have the use of your limbs; but without health the works of your limbs are nothing and he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs.

Martin Luther
God is ready to give more quickly, and to give more than you ask; yea, he offers his treasures if we only take them. It is truly a great shame and a severe chastisement for us Christians that God should still upbraid us for our slothfulness in prayer, and that we fail to let such a rich and excellent promise incite us to pray.

Martin Luther
I have grounded my preaching upon the literal word; he that pleases may follow me; he that will not may stay.

Martin Luther
Christians fight best on their knees. Whatever good may be done is done and brought about by prayer.

Martin Luther
Over against the devil and his missionaries, the authors of false doctrines and sects, we ought to be like the Apostle, impatient, and rigorously condemnatory, as parents are with the dog that bites their little one, but the weeping child itself they soothe.

Martin Luther
Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he (the believer)does not need works for his justification, but that he may not be idle, but that he may exercise his own body and preserve it. His works are to be done freely, with the sole object of pleasing God.

Martin Luther
The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that?

Martin Luther
For they who think they make an end of temptation by yeilding to it, only set themselves on fire the more.

Martin Luther
Here is the truly Christian life, here is faith really working by love, when a man applies himself with joy and love to the works of that freest servitude in which he serves others voluntarily and for nought, himself abundantly satisfied in the fulness and riches of his own faith.

Martin Luther
When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called, her Eva--that is to say, the Mother of All. He did not style her wife, but simply mother--mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.

Martin Luther
I almost feel like throwing Jimmy into the stove, as the priest in Kulenberg did.

Martin Luther
It would be a good thing if young people were wise and old people were strong, but God has arranged things better.

Martin Luther
He who loses sight of the word of God, falls into despair; the voice of heaven no longer sustains him; he follows only the disorderly tendency of his heart.

Martin Luther
It is the duty of a prudent minister of God to hold his ministry in honor and to see to it that it is respected by those who are in his charge. Moreoever, it is the duty of a faithful minister not to exceed his powers and not to abuse his office in pride, but, rather, to administer it for the benefit of his subjects.

Martin Luther
The faith towards God in Christ must be sure and steadfast, that it may solace and make glad the conscience, and put it to rest. When a man has this certainty, he has overcome the serpent; but if he be doubtful of the doctrine, it is for him very dangerous to dispute with the devil.

Martin Luther
I cannot believe that my illness is natural. I suspect Satan, and therefore I am the more inclined to take it lightly.

Martin Luther
I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure.... When letters have declined and lain prostrate, theology, too, has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate.... It is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily.

Martin Luther