Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Advent creates people, new people.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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

Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God has prepared for Himself one great song of praise throughout eternity, and those who enter the community of God join in this song. It is the song that the “morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” at the creation of the world. (Job 38:7). It is the victory song of the children of Israel after passing through the Red Sea, the Magnificat of Mary after the annunciation, the song of Paul and Silas in the night of prison, the song of the singers on the sea of glass after their rescue, the “song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:3) It is the song of the heavenly fellowship.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbour hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility. The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behaviour must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer