Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich!

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this.

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.

The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship.

I need the Christ that is in you, and you need the Christ that is in me.

God does not love some ideal person, but rather human beings just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.

There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.

A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.

The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.

The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one's life to a larger goal.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.

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.

Once a man has truly experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve.

Time is lost when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

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

Only those who put tomorrow completely into God's hand and receive fully today what they need for their lives are really secure.

It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.

When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people.

time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.

He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

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

It seems to me more important actually to share someones distress than to use smooth words about it.

The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.

Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things.

Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.

Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.

Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.

It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song.

The church is her true self only when she exists for humanity.

Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.

The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become.

Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then let’s see something to prove it.

God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.

The Lord confers great honor on his servants when he brings them suffering.

Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.

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

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.