Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The distinction between objective and personal thinking must truly first be learned. Many people never learn this (look at our colleagues in the ministry! among others).

To finally take up his bourgeois responsibility as a German, he went to the spot where God had placed him through birth and talents. He never considered rejecting his position in life.

What is the power of Christ? It is the hidden, secret power of the cross and of suffering.

The morning prayer determines the day. Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weaknesses and lack of courage in work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation... all have their origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer.

I think we honour God more if we gratefully accept the life that he gives us with all its blessings, loving it and drinking it to the full, and also grieving deeply and sincerely when we have impaired or wasted any of the good things of life (some people denounce such an attitude, and think it is bourgeois, weak, and sensitive), than if we are insensitive to life's blessings and may therefore also be insensitive to pain.

But this distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.

By the way, do you notice that uneducated people find it very difficult to decide things objectively, and that they allow some more or less fortuitous minor circumstance to turn the scales?

How does Jesus differ from other great persons and heroes? All heroes come from lowliness and want to be great, while Jesus comes from the heights and wants to be humble. All heroes are human beings and want to be like God, while Christ is God and wants to be a human being. All heroes are born of the earth; Christ is born of God.[524] [—] John 3:6; Acts 4:12

When a man gets angry with his brother and swears at him, when he publicly insults or slanders him, he is guilty of murder and forfeits his relation to God. He erects a barrier not only between himself and his brother, but also between himself and God.

There is no fulfilment of the law apart from communion with God, and no communion with God apart from fulfilment of the law. To forget the first condition was the mistake of the Jews, and to forget the second the temptation of the disciples.

The source of their faith lies in the once-and-for-allness of Christ's death, which they have experienced in their baptism.

When one no longer knows what one owes oneself and others, where the sense for human quality and the strength to respect boundaries cease to exist, chaos is at the door. When for the sake of material comfort one tolerates impudence, one has already surrendered, there the floods of chaos have been permitted to burst the dam at the place where it was to be defended, and one becomes guilty of all that follows.