Martin Luther Quotes

Jesus is not an impractical idealist; he is the practical realist.

A man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

If we are going to achieve a real equality, the U.S. will have to adopt a modified form of Socialism.

God freely forgives us on account of Christnot on account of our works, contrition, confession, or satisfactions.

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.

The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that he sunk himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding.

The Holy Spirit has a way of His own to say much in few words.

You parents can provide no better gift for your children than an education in the liberal arts. House and home burn down, but an education is easy to carry along.

Spare the rod and spoil the child - that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.

Power is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice is love correcting everything that goes against love.

And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality.

Faith is permitting ourselves to be seized by the things that we do not see.

Nothing pains some people more than having to think

Your truth will increase as you know listen to the truth of others

The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.

I just want to do God’s will.

We can walk through the darkest night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good.

The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Beer is made by men, wine by God.

Father and Mother are apostles, bishops and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the gospel.

First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.

I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.

You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.

We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.

Let the man who would hear God speak, read Holy Scriptures.

It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.

Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

Riots are the voices of the unheard.

Even if all the world were to combine forces, they could not bring about the conception of a single child in any woman's womb nor cause it to be born; that is wholly the work of God.

I decide on the basis of conscience. A genuine leader doesn't reflect consensus, he molds consensus.

To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law . . That would lead to anarchy.

The secret of contentment is the realization that life is a gift, not a right. Next to faith this is the highest art - to be content with the calling in which God has placed you.

Our goal is to create a beloved community," said Dr. King, "and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world.

Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.

The words 'I will forgive you, but I'll never forget what you've done' never explain the real nature of forgiveness.

Brief let me be. The fewer words the better prayer.

To turn one's eyes away from Jesus means to turn them to the Law.

Whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved - for it is God's teaching and not mine.

By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

The two chief things are faith and love. Faith receives the good; love gives the good. Faith offers us God as our own; love gives us to our neighbor as his own.