Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFERA 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.
More Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
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The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.
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The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind.
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Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
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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.
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Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
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God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.
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No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
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There can be no real attachment to the given creation, no genuine responsibility in the world, unless we recognize the breach which already separates us from it.
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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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There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.
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When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
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One act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons.
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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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We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
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If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?
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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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Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
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Not to speak is to speak.
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Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.
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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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A false faith is capable of terrible and monstrous things.
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My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.
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There is a wrong way of staying in the world and a wrong way of fleeing from it. In both cases we are fashioning ourselves according to the world.
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This is the end. For me the beginning of life.
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The world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.
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Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER