Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.

If God is in a life, it doesn't have to be big to be happy and to be important in His kingdom.

The Lord doesn't like us to be dead. Be alive. Sometimes I dance to the glory of the Lord, because He said so.

You know, God has a plan for me, and I'm going to follow in his footsteps and just rejoice and be happy.

Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.

Jean was visited by one of her rare moments of happiness, one of those moments when the goodness of God was so real to her that it was like taste and scent; the rough strong taste of honey in the comb and the scent of water. Her thoughts of God had a homeliness that at times seemed shocking, in spite of their power, which could rescue her from terror or evil with an ease that astonished her.

... if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—SOME.

The gospel is a thing of joy. It provides us with a reason for gladness. Of course there are times of sorrow. Of course there are hours of concern and anxiety. We all worry. But the Lord has told us to lift our hearts and rejoice. I see so many people...who seem never to see the sunshine, but who constantly walk with storms under cloudy skies. Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine.

Joy is the grace we say to God.

The happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist.

Rejoice, the Lord is King! Your Lord and King adore; Mortals, give thanks and sing, And triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; Rejoice, again, I say rejoice.

When I think upon my God, my heart is full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen.

A happy New Year! Grant that I May bring no tear to any eye When this New Year in time shall end Let it be said I've played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year.

The best way to prepare yourself for your own miracle is to rejoice in somebody else's.

We look for visions of heaven and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us.

A source of cheerfulness to a good mind is the consideration of that Being on whom we have our dependence, and in whom, though we behold Him as yet but in the first faint discoveries of His perfections, we see everything that we can imagine as great glorious, or amiable. We find ourselves everywhere upheld by His goodness and surrounded by an immensity of love and mercy.

Our knowledge of God is perfected by gratiitude: we are thankful and rejoice in the experience of the truth that He is love.

Even in my prime, I need God in my life because without God, we're nothing.

I do hope your Christmas has had a little touch of Eternity in among the rush and pitter patter and all. It always seems such a mixing of this world and the next - but that after all is the idea!

All these people, all these things came into my life, and they're all blessings from God. And now that I look back, I realize that these are His fingerprints all over my story.

At this and every season, our Savior invites us to join with HIM and others to offer the priceless gift of JOY.

Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but of having encountered a person: Jesus in our midst.

If there is God, I thought...Please some day let me make love to this girl while she wears that dress." "Oh..." "Tatiasha...isn't it nice to know there is a God?

For 10 years of my life, 3 times a day, I thanked the Lord for what I was about to receive and thanked him again for what I had just received, and then we lost touch and I suddenly thought, where is he now

You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.