Quotes from Martin Luther

Your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and day you shall be in dread, and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say: 'Would it were evening!' and at evening you shall say: 'Would it were morning!'" I have not found a place which sets forth the misery of a bad conscience so clearly, with such fitting and appropriate words and expressions.

For whatever is said against a righteous man is said indirectly against God, who is in the righteous.

His righteousness rises above the sins of all men; His life is more powerful than all death; His salvation is more unconquerable than all hell.

I have no dispute with any man concerning morals, but only concerning the word of truth. In all other things I will yield to any one, but I neither can nor will forsake and deny the word. He who thinks otherwise of me, or has taken in my words in another sense, does not think rightly, and has not taken in the truth.

For so it usually happens in the world. Righteous men are regarded as sinners and vice versa. No one in the whole world is a sinner except the man who has the Word and believes in Christ. But those who persecute and hate the Word are the righteous ones. As Christ says (cf. John 16:2): "They think they are offering God a service.

The Lord who has given us power to teach and to hear, let Him also give us the power to serve and to do.

See, according to this rule the good things we have from God should flow from one to the other and be common to all, so that everyone should "put on" his neighbor and so conduct himself toward him as if he himself were in the other's place.

I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me; I will do nothing in this life except what I see is necessary, profitable, and salutary to my neighbor, since through faith I have an abundance of all good things in Christ.

Every time people are converted, it is because God has come to them and overcome their ignorance by showing the Gospel to them.

The Lord is our glory. Such gifts as we possess we acknowledge to be the gifts of God, given to us for the good of the Church of Christ. Therefore we are not proud because of them. We know that more is required of them to whom much is given, than of such to whom little is given. We also know that God is no respecter of persons. A plain factory hand who does his work faithfully pleases God just as much as a minister of the Word.

God wants to give us more than we ask for, not just fulfill our weak prayers. Joseph

For a man does not serve that he may put men under obligations. He does not distinguish between friends and enemies or anticipate their thankfulness or unthankfulness, but he most freely and most willingly spends himself and all that he has, whether he wastes all on the thankless or whether he gains a reward.