Top 500 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “You can only learn what obedience is by obeying.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

52. “The biggest mistake you can make in your life is to be always afraid of making a mistake.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

53. “A righteous person is one who lives for the next generation.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

55. “Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

56. “It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

57. “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

58. “We are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one event to the next in order not to have to spend a moment alone with ourselves, in order not to have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

59. “In Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

61. “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

62. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

63. “If Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? If he is not true man, how could he help us?”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

64. “God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises...”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

65. “Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

67. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

69. “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

70. “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

71. “Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians because we are talking when we should be listening.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

72. “The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

73. “The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

74. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

75. “The first service that one owes to others consists in listening to them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

76. “There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

77. “The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

78. “Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

79. “The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

80. “Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

81. “Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

82. “A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

85. “If you reject God’s commanding word, you will not receive God’s gracious word.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

86. “Once again, Jesus calls those who follow him to share his passion.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

87. “Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

88. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

90. “Advent creates people, new people.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

91. “2 Corinthians 5:20: So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

92. “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

93. “Why are we so afraid when we think about death? Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in Him.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

94. “What is happiness and unhappiness? It depends so little on the circumstances; it depends really only on what happens inside a person. I am grateful for every day and that makes me happy.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

95. “He who fears the face of God does not fear the face of man. He who fears the face of man does not fear the face of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

96. “Each morning is a new beginning of our life. Each day is a finished whole. The present day marks the boundary of our cares and concerns. It is long enough to find God or lose Him, to keep faith or fall into disgrace.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

97. “God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

98. “He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

99. “Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

100. “The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all worry, and anxiety flee before him.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer