Top 500 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “All are called to be what in the reality of God they already are.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

302. “It is wrong, in this age of necessary decisions, to bully people into decisions that are neither genuine nor necessary.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

303. “I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

304. “When you read the Bible, you must think that here and now, God is speaking with me.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

305. “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to by which the merchant will sell all his goods.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

306. “Every sermon must contain a certain shot of heresy.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

307. “Once a man has truly experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

308. “Politics are not the task of a Christian.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

309. “Christian marriage is marked by discipline and self-denial. Christ is the Lord even of marriage.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

310. “The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

311. “To reproach in a modern tyranny a people as a whole for failing to revolt is as if one would reproach a prisoner for failing to escape from a heavily guarded prison.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

312. “Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

313. “We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

314. “But it is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it it to be arranged by God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

315. “Discipleship is commitment to Christ. Because Christ exists, he must be followed.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

316. “The future and the hope for the middle class church lies in the renewal of its lifeblood, which is only possible if the church succeeds in winning the working class.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

317. “At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on – how many such “from-now-ons” have there already been! – to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

318. “There is only one church, the church of faith ruled by the word of Jesus Christ alone. This is the true catholic church that has never disappeared and is still concealed in the church of Rome. It is the body of Christ – corpus Christi. It is the true unity of the West.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

319. “Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

320. “Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

321. “It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to accept suffering as free, responsible men.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

322. “God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

323. “We cannot approach the manger of the Christ child in the same way we approach the cradle of another child. Rather, when we go to his manger, something happens, and we cannot leave it again unless we have been judged or redeemed. Here we must either collapse or know the mercy of God directed toward us.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

324. “If we want to participate in this Advent and Christmas event, we cannot simply sit there like spectators in a theater and enjoy all the friendly pictures. Rather, we must join in the action that is taking place and be drawn into this reversal of all things ourselves. Here we too must act on the stage, for here the spectator is always a person acting in the drama. We cannot remove ourselves from the action.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

325. “A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

326. “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

327. “There remains an experience of incomparable value.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

328. “I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

329. “Wherever there are sinners, the weak, the sorrowful, the poor in the world, that is where God goes.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

330. “Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

331. “Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

332. “Neighbourliness is not a quality in other people, it is simply their claim on ourselves.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

333. “Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and answers in the Word of Jesus Christ...”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

334. “Every Christian must be fully Christian by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some spiritual realm.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

335. “God’s truth judges created things out of love, and Satan’s truth judges them out of envy and hatred.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

336. “No one knows God unless God reveals Himself to him.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

337. “God alone judges, and God’s judgment is helpful and healing. After all, we can only serve other Christians; we can never place ourselves above them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

338. “Why do I meditate? Because I am a Christian. Therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God’s Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scripture in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

339. “The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

340. “Are you afraid of God’s wrath? Then go to the child in the manger and receive there the peace of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

341. “The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

342. “Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts he has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

343. “Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God’s glory.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

344. “Those who are still afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who have fear of God have ceased to be afraid of men. All preachers of the gospel will do well to recollect this saying daily.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

345. “Radicalism hates time. Compromise hates eternity. Radicalism hates patience. Compromise hates decision. Radicalism hates wisdom. Compromise hates simplicity. Radicalism hates measure. Compromise hates the immeasurable.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

346. “Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

347. “Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons others to their sin.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

348. “Not hero worship, but intimacy with Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

349. “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

350. “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian community in which we have been placed, even when there are no great experiences, no noticeable riches, but much weakness, difficulty, and little faith – and if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so miserable and so insignificant and does not at all live up to our expectations – then we hinder God from letting our community grow according to the measure and riches that are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer