Dietrich Bonhoeffer

""The right way to pray is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.""

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Look up, you whose gaze is fixed on this earth, who are spellbound by the little events and changes on the face of the earth. Look up to these words, you who have turned away from heaven disappointed. Look up, you whose eyes are heavy with tears and who are heavy and who are crying over the fact that the earth has gracelessly torn us away. Look up, you who, burdened with guilt, cannot lift your eyes. Look up, your redemption is drawing near. something different from what you see daily will happen. Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait and something quite new will break over you: God will come."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"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

"After death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. 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. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther)."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"You can only learn what obedience is by obeying."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise godfearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The Church is the Church only when it exists for others."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—things that are of no real consequence—the door is shut, and can be opened only from the outside."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

""A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.""

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"I’ve had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer