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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

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Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Evil, Silence, Faces

If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Bystanders, Hands

Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Should, Disbelief

Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Speak, Evil God

Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cost, Salvation, Discipleship

Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Sin, Discipleship, Avoiding

The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
People, Community, Vision

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Peace, Strong

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Discipline, Grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2001). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.4, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

May God in His mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may He lead us to Himself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
May, Mercy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2001). “Letters and Papers from Prison”, p.137, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Pain, Firsts, Sound

The biggest mistake you can make in your life is to be always afraid of making a mistake.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mistake, Making Mistakes, Life Is

Faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Real, Obedience
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.21, SCM Press

Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mother, Simple, Issues
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “Ethics”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Courage, Wheels, Injustice

Comfort the troubled, and trouble the comfortable.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Comfort, Trouble, Comfortable

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Nature, Children, Accountability

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.....We must not.....assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Schedules, Assuming, Ready

In me there is darkness, But with You there is light; I am lonely, but You do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help; I am restless, but with You there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience; I do not understand Your ways, But You know the way for me.” “Lord Jesus Christ, You were poor And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am. You know all man’s troubles; You abide with me When all men fail me; You remember and seek me; It is Your will that I should know You And turn to You. Lord, I hear Your call and follow; Help me.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lonely, Jesus, Heart

The time is short. Eternity is long. It is the time of decision.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Long, Decision, Eternity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.159, SCM Press

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Godly, Following Christ, Christianity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.17, SCM Press

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then, pass them by, preoccupied with our important daily tasks, just as the priest-perhaps reading the Bible-passed by the man who had fallen among robbers. When we do that, we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised in our lives to show us that God’s way, and not our own, is what counts.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Reading, Men, Daily Tasks
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1996). “Life Together: Prayerbook of the Bible”, Fortress Pr

If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering .

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Uplifting, Christian, Mean

The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for all the division which rend cities and homes. Jesus and his disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes. Only he will be blessed who remains loyal to Jesus and his word until the end.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Crazy, Blessed

The deceit, the lie of the Devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God's Word.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lying, Believe, Men
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1997). “Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies”, p.124, Simon and Schuster

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