Top 500 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Christian Quotes

2. “Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

3. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Silence Quotes, Evil Quotes

4. “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

5. “The deep meaning of the cross of Christ is that there is no suffering on earth that is not borne by God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Suffering Quotes

6. “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich!”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Gratitude Quotes

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

8. “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Evil Quotes

9. “Faith without works is not faith at all, but a simple lack of obedience to God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

10. “The church is not a religious community of worshippers of Christ but is Christ himself who has taken form among people.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

11. “Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

12. “We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

13. “Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

14. “The devil doesn’t fill us with hatred for God, but with forgetfulness of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

15. “Faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Featured in: Real Quotes

16. “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

17. “In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

18. “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

19. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

20. “Comfort the troubled, and trouble the comfortable.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

21. “One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

22. “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

23. “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

24. “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

25. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

26. “Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

27. “Only the suffering God can help.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

28. “The more isolated a person is, the more destructive the power of sin over him.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

30. “It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to God that they should lead them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

31. “Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

32. “The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

33. “God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

35. “May God in His mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may He lead us to Himself.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

36. “Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

37. “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

38. “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

40. “Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

41. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

42. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

43. “The time is short. Eternity is long. It is the time of decision.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

45. “Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

47. “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

48. “To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is, ‘He leads the way, keep close to Him.’”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

49. “You can only learn what obedience is by obeying.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer