The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFERIn normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
More Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
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I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains – or spiritual trial? Once they’re over, the world looks quite a different place again.
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Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.
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We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
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Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
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In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.
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Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
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Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
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A false faith is capable of terrible and monstrous things.
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Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?
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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.
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The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus’ hands.
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The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on the contrary, its validation. One does not use canons to shoot sparrows.
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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.
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Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
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We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.
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Grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.
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Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
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Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.
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Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.
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If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don’t believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it.
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I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.
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The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.
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Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.
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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.
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Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.
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A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER