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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes - Page 6

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Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Prayer, Heart, Mean

It is the task of youth not to reshape the church, but rather to listen to the word of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Church, Tasks, Youth

Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gratitude, Wish, Life Is

Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Blessing, Opportunity, Goodness
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly (1990). “A testament to freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, Harpercollins

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Faith, Ideas, People
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.8, Westminster John Knox Press

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Soul, Looks, Imperfect

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Spiritual, Mean, Men

Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character; it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Appreciation, Truth, Real
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “Ethics”, p.359, Simon and Schuster

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Battle, Weapons, Way
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly (1990). “A testament to freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, Harpercollins

Who am I? this or the other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army fleeing in disorder from a victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lonely, Hypocrite, Army
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

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
Men, Order, People
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.17, SCM Press

Ultimate seriousness in not without a dose of humor.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Theologian, Seriousness, Dose

Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, l honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letting Go, Children, Vanity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.26, Westminster John Knox Press

On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came took him away. As he left, he said to another prisoner, This is the end - but for me, the beginning - of life. He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Life, Sunday, Two

The church is her true self only when she exists for humanity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Self, Humanity
"Letters and Papers from Prison".

Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Suffering, Glory
"Meditations on the Cross". Book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 3, 1996.

A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Faith, Atheist, Godly

Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

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

How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. . . . We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved. . . . God is no stop-gap; he must be recognized as the center of life, not when we are at the end of our resources.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God, Use, Want
Letters and papers from Prison, p. 311, 1996.

It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. … So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Jesus, Taken
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.7, SCM Press

Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try to find anything.....It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Pain, Grieving, Trying

A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Kings, Kingdoms, Strange
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter”, p.69, Westminster John Knox Press

It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. If any member refuses to bear that burden, he denies the law of Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Law, Doe
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.78, SCM Press

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gratitude, Achievement, Easy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mean, Ideas, Done

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