Martin Luther Quotes
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Then they began to say: 'Yes, but how can we know what is God's Word, and what is right or wrong? We must learn this from the Pope and the councils.' Very well then, let them conclude and say what they please, yet I will reply, you cannot put your confidence in that nor thus satisfy your conscience, for you must determine this matter yourself, for your very life depends upon it. Therefore God must speak to your heart: This is God's Word; otherwise you are undecided.
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A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.
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As to why some are touched by the law and others not, so that some receive and others scorn the offer of grace...this is the hidden will of God, Who, according to His own counsel, ordains such persons as He wills to receive and partake of the mercy preached and offered.
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When I was abandoned by everybody, in my greatest weakness, trembling and afraid of death, when I was persecuted by this wicked world, then I often felt most surely the divine power in this name, Jesus Christ... So, by God's grace, I will live and die for that name.
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To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.
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Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.
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If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.
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A person must take care to exercise moderate discipline over the body and subject it to the Spirit by means of fasting, vigils, and labor. The goal is to have the body obey and conform-and not hinder-the inner person and faith. Unless it is held in check, we know it is the nature of the body to undermine faith and the inner person.
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Spare the rod and spoil the child - that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.
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But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.
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Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.
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If it were art to overcome heresy with fire, the executioners would be the most learned doctors on earth.
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Small Catechism, The Fifth Commandment, (1529).
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When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children.
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We are nothing with all our gifts be they ever so great, except God assist us.
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You should be certain that angels are protecting you when you go to sleep. Yea, that they are protecting you also in all your business, whether you enter or leave your home.
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It is not necessary for a preacher to express all his thoughts in one sermon. A preacher should have three principles: first, to make a good beginning, and not spend time with many words before coming to the point; secondly, to say that which belongs to the subject in chief, and avoid strange and foreign thoughts; thirdly, to stop at the proper time.
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The heart overflows with gladness, and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God. In this experience the Holy Spirit is active, and has taught us in the flash of a moment the deep secret of joy. You will have as much joy and laughter in life as you have faith in God.
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If the gospel was of a nature to be propagated or maintained by the power of the world, God would not have intrusted it to fishermen. To defend the gospel appertains not to the princes and pontiffs of this world.
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We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
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Every country must have its own devil. Welshland its own, and France its own. Our German devil will be a good wind-pipe, and must be called drinking, being so thirsty and hell-like that no guzzling of wine and beer, however large, will cool it off, and I fear that such will ever remain Germany's plague, until the day of judgment.
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Insurrection ... never brings about the desired improvement. For insurrection lacks discernment; it generally harms the innocent more than the guilty. Hence, no insurrection is ever right, no matter how right the cause it seeks to promote.
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There are some of us who think to ourselves, 'If I had only been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby. I would have washed His linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!' Why don't we do it now? We have Christ in our neighbor.
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Ambition begat simony; simony begat the pope and his brethren, about the time of the Babylonish captivity.