Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Tears Word
Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Important Philosophy Time Value Worth
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Ourselves
Grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Freedom Grace Simplicity
Not to speak is to speak.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Deep One Liner Talk
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Death Man Spiritual
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 BONHOEFFER

Beyond Expression Human Ourselves Sing Talk
Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Himself Religion Worth
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

God Man People
Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Food Himself Ourselves
The Church is the Church only when it exists for others, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Help Live Man
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

End Faith Life Spirit Struggle Weapon
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Funny Serious
Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe God Life Yourself
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Direction Run Wrong Yourself
God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Ideal Love Pain Reality World
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Fashion Ourselves Stay World Wrong
In 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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Achievement Easy Gratitude Hard Help Important Life Rich
Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Himself Ourselves
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?
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Appearance Myself Person Possible Recognition Serious Sin Worst
Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Himself Oneself Patience Religious Wait
There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Journey Travel
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

Freedom Himself Myself Relationship
The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of Jesus Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Religious Truth World
Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Deep Religious Value Worth
Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Himself Justice Myself Peace Worth
Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Desire Himself Oneself Person

Famous German theologians