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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Total quotes: 31
“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: normal, Gratitude, Cooperation
“…time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: Time, Irrevocable
“The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Will Of God, victory, enemies
“Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies
Tagged: Freedom, Relationship
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: Suffering, accomplishment
“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Big Things, Small Things, prayer, gifts
“It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: Love, Marriage
“Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: jesus, Conversion, Calvary, Proselytizing
“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Community, Love, Dreamers
“If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all....How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: sinfulness, Humility
“While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human; and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons
Tagged: humanity, Pious, Godless, Good, Evil, noble, base, God's Love
“If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Judgment, Evil
“The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: enemies, brothers, Christians, jesus
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Christ, Religious Calling, Self-Sacrifice, Martyrdom
“[God says] Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend—it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Discipleship, Comprehension, Bewilderment, Transcendence
“Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Human Love
“Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. In the wilderness God gave Israel the manna every day, and they had no need to worry about food and drink. Indeed, if they kept any of the manna over until the next day, it went bad. In the same way, the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between himself and God. Where our treasure is, there is our trust, our security, our consolation and our God. Hoarding is idolatry.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Hoarding, Idolatry, Manna, Wilderness, Israel, Wealth, Security, Treasure, God
“In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;
I am restless, but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
When all men fail me;
You remember and seek me;
It is Your will that I should know You
And turn to You.
Lord, I hear Your call and follow;
Help me.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: Poetry, Bitterness, Troubles, Jesus Christ, prayer, Peace
“The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for all the division which rend cities and homes. Jesus and his disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes. Only he will be blessed who remains loyal to Jesus and his word until the end.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: jesus, End Times, Fanatics, Disturbing the Peace
“Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love, there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Christian Love, Enemy, Disciples of Christ, Unconditional Love
“These men without possessions or power, these strangers on Earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They have an irresistible love for the downtrodden, the sick, the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity. If any man falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honor to shield him, and take his shame upon themselves.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Possessions, Power, jesus, Downtrodden, Humiliation, Distress, Sin, Guilt, Shame, Sacrifice
“The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible….The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies
Tagged: Evil, Theology, Sinners, forgiveness, Guilt
“Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Christian Community, God, thankful, Fellowship
“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Listening, Confession, Word of God, Christians, Obligation
“To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it is indeed a narrow way. To confess and testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time to love the enemies of that truth, his enemies and ours, and to love them with the infinite love of Jesus Christ, is indeed a narrow way. To believe the promise of Jesus that his followers shall possess the earth, and at the same time to face our enemies unarmed and defenseless, preferring to incur injustice rather than to do wrong ourselves, is indeed a narrow way. To see the weakness and wrong in others, and at the same time refrain from judging them; to deliver the gospel message without casting pearls before swine, is indeed a narrow way. The way is unutterably hard, and at every moment we are in danger of straying from it. If we regard this way as one we follow in obedience to an external command, if we are afraid of ourselves all the time, it is indeed an impossible way. But if we behold Jesus Christ going on before step by step, we shall not go astray.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: Calling, Quality, Jesus Christ, enemies, Confession
“True prayer is done in secret, but this does not rule out the fellowship of prayer altogether, however clearly we may be aware of its dangers. In the last resort it is immaterial whether we pray in the open street or in the secrecy of our chambers, whether briefly or lengthily, in the Litany of the Church, or with the sigh of one who knows not what he should pray for. True prayer does not depend either on the individual or the whole body of the faithful, but solely upon the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows our needs.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: prayer, Secret, Litany, Church, Heavenly Father
“I want to be my own law, I have a right to myself, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride...In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother—which means, before God—we experience the Cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation. The old man dies, but it is God who has conquered him. Now we share in the resurrection of Christ and eternal life.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Law, Hatred, Flesh, Mind, Conression, Humiliation, Salvation, Crucifixion of Christ
“In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility. The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Tagged: New Testament, enemies, Hostility, jesus, Christians
“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Tagged: witnesses, Evil Deeds, Cynicasl, Pretense, Equivocation, Geniuses, Misanthropes, tacticians, Remorseless
“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution....Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community
Tagged: Confession, God, Brothher, forgiveness, sins, Disobedience
“God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly….God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas
Tagged: God, Despair, Marvelous, Reason, Rebelliousness
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