37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.

The right way to pray is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.

We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

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

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day.

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men, but only in the sight of God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.

As a fresh start, the church should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy.

To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

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.

You can only learn what obedience is by obeying.

Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack's wares. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.

If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.

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.

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

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

A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world.

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

God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use. What matters is the faith which lays hold on God, knowing that He knows our needs before we even ask Him. That is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty.

One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly.

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