DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

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

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

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

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

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.

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

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.

To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.

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

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.

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

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

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

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

Death is the supreme celebration on the road to freedom.

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; in enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not abandon it to his enemy.

It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to accept suffering as free, responsible men.

Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate reaction must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. May their poverty be enriched with all the riches of God, with the blessing of Him whom they seek to oppose in vain. We are ready to endure their curses so long as they redound to their blessing.

The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.

Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.

Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours.

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.

grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.