Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief' is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.

A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.

Faith is difficult to conquer and requires daily battles if it is to be maintained.

Lord I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.

The inner life must overcome the flesh or the flesh will overcome and destroy the inner life.

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Christianity is a battle not a dream.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle.

My 12th was my most Christian and most boring year of my life. Try as I did, day after day, to cling to righteousness, I was washed down in suds of sinful surroundings.

Men are not born saints with special gifts and privileges. They fight against the world, the flesh and the devil, and as they conquer, the spirit of Jesus begins to shine through with more clarity.

So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting.

We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war.

God is in my head, but the devil is in my pants.

He that comes to Christ cannot, it is true, always get on as fast as he would. Poor coming soul, thou art like the man that would ride full gallop whose horse will hardly trot. Now the desire of his mind is not to be judged of by the slow pace of the dull jade he rides on, but by the hitching and kicking and spurring as he sits on his back. Thy flesh is like this dull jade, it will not gallop after Christ, it will be backward though thy soul and heaven lie at stake.

The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.

All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.

Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

We all have in our hearts some areas of unbelief. Let us say to the Lord: I believe! Help my unbelief.

The Holy Spirit makes us aware of our lack of holiness to stimulate us to deeper yearning and striving for holiness. But Satan will attempt to use the Holy Spirit’s work to discourage us.

The spiritual battle, the loss of victory, is always in the thought-world.

The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins; those sins which have lain nearest his heart, must now be trampled under his feet.

We've been taught that the Christian life is a life of peace, and when we don't have peace, we assume the problem lies within us. Not only do we feel anxious, but we also feel guilty about our anxiety! The result is a downward spiral of worry, guilt, worry, guilt.