Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy, as only children can be happy.

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 more isolated a person is, the more destructive the power of sin over him.

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.

A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.

A pastor who does not pray daily for his congregation is not a pastor.

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment. Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God. Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cros

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind

The proclamation of grace has its limits. Grace may not be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it... The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them.

It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.

The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all worry, and anxiety flee before him.

Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life.

Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.

Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.

The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.

In Jesus, the service of God and the service of the least of the brethren were one.

You can only learn what obedience is by obeying

How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?

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

Loving God means rejoicing in God, being eager to think of and pray to God. It means being glad to be in God's presence and to be with God alone. It means not grieving God, but rejoicing in God simply because it is God who is involved, and because we are permitted to know and have God, and to speak with and live with God.

There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture.

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.

A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.

It is the task of youth not to reshape the church, but rather to listen to the word of God.

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is, 'He leads the way, keep close to Him.'

The person who's in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.