Top 500 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes (2023 Update)
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151. “To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

152. “When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

153. “I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

154. “I need the Christ that is in you, and you need the Christ that is in me.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

155. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

157. “Good works then are ordained for the sake of salvation, but they are in the end those which God himself works within us. They are his gift, but it is our task to walk in them at every moment of our lives, knowing all the time that any good works of our own could never help us to abide before the judgement of God. We cling in faith to Christ and his works alone.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

158. “God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

159. “If we start with such ideas as God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, we will never arrive at a true knowledge of God. However, if we participate by faith in Jesus Christ as the one who “is there for others,” we are liberated from self and experience the transcendence that is truly the God of the Bible.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

160. “It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

161. “How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

162. “Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

163. “As long as we let the Word of God be our only armor, we can look confidently into the future.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

164. “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

165. “The Scriptures speak of three kinds of community at the table that Jesus keeps with his own: the daily breaking of bread together at meals, the breaking of bread together at the Lord’s Supper, and the final breaking of bread together in the reign of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

166. “The Christian life is participation in the encounter of Christ with the world.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

167. “By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

168. “In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

169. “Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

170. “The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one’s life towards a goal. Without such a goal, chastity is bound to become ridiculous. Chastity is the sine qua non of lucidity and concentration.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

171. “Discipleship never consists in this or that specific action: it is always a decision, either for or against Jesus Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

172. “Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

173. “Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words...”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

174. “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.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

175. “The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

176. “That fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than that fact that I will die.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

178. “The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

179. “Nevertheless, it is the free grace of the resurrected One that now also goes after the individual, overcomes the doubter, and creates in him the Easter faith.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

181. “How is it possible to live the life of faith when we grow weary of prayer, when we lose our taste for reading the Bible, and when sleep, food and sensuality deprive us of the joy of communion with God?”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

182. “A pastor who does not pray daily for his congregation is not a pastor.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

183. “Only in Jesus Christ are we one, only through him are we bound together.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

184. “The Psalter is the great school of prayer.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

185. “Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

186. “How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

187. “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

188. “The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

189. “Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

190. “If you want my goodness to stay with you then serve your neighbor, for that is where God comes to you.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

191. “Right speech comes out of silence and right silence comes out of speech.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

193. “The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

194. “Most people have forgotten nowadays what a house can mean, though some of us have come to realize it as never before. It is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

195. “A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

196. “The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the distress of the cross; therefore it is invincible and irrefutable.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

197. “Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

198. “Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

199. “When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give; and the more meager our love for one another, the less we were living by God’s mercy and love.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

200. “If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer