Quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

About Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship became a modern classic.
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Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in the power and authority of the commission Christ has given him. Our brother stands before us the sign of the truth and the grace of God. He has been gi...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for Go...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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.

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 o...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The more we have known of the really good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later literature becomes, sometimes almost to the point of making us sick. Do you know a work of literature written in the last, say, fifteen years that you think...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been given such immense freedom and power to take the helm in their life’s journey…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We ought not to be in too much of a hurry here to speak piously of God’s will and guidance. It is obvious, and it should not be ignored, that it is your own very human wills that are at work here, celebrating their triumph; the course that you are ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Barth was the first theologian to begin the criticism of religion...but he set in its place the positivist doctrine of revelation which says in effect, 'Take it or leave it': Virgin Birth, Trinity or anything else, everything which is an equally sign...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

we have been silent witnesses to

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As God adds his ‘Yes’ to your ‘Yes,’ as he confirms your will with his will, and as he allows you, and approves of, your triumph and rejoicing and pride, he makes you at the same time instruments of his will and purpose both for yourselves an...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In other times it may have been the business of Christianity to champion the equality of all men; its business today will be to defend passionately human dignity and reserve.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Author Bio

  • NameDietrich Bonhoeffer
  • DescriptionGerman Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
  • BornFebruary 4, 1906
  • DiedApril 9, 1945
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionTheologian; Philosopher
  • AwardsRighteous Among The Nations; Civil Courage Prize