Martin Luther Quotes
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One learns more of Christ in being married and rearing children than in several lifetimes spent in study in a monastery.
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Great people and champions are special gifts of God, whom He gives and preserves; they do their work, and achieve great actions, not with vain imaginations, or cold and sleepy cogitations, but by motion of God.
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In Switzerland, on a high mountain, not far from Lucerne, there is a lake they call Pilate's Pond, which the Devil has fixed upon as one of the chief residences of his evil spirits.
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Heretics cannot themselves appear good unless they depict the Church as evil, false, and mendacious. They alone wish to be esteemed as the good, but the Church must be made to appear evil in every respect.
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The man who has the will to undergo all labor may win to any good.
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First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.
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If I could today become king or emperor, I would not give up my office as preacher.
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Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate.
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Nothing in the world causes so much misery as uncertainty.
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Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon.
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God is ready to give more quickly, and to give more than you ask; yea, he offers his treasures if we only take them. It is truly a great shame and a severe chastisement for us Christians that God should still upbraid us for our slothfulness in prayer, and that we fail to let such a rich and excellent promise incite us to pray.
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If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
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We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.
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Can he who understands not God's word, understand God's works?
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In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.
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We need to hear the Gospel every day, because we forget it every day.
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In short, I will preach it the Word, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
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Astrology is framed by the devil, to the end people may be scared from entering into the state of matrimony, and from every divine and human office and calling.
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If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn't do anything to you, but since you aren't wise, you need us who are old.
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All seed except Mary was vitiated by original sin.
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The Holy Ghost has called me by the gospel and illuminated me with his gifts and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith.
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A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass.
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There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.
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For they who think they make an end of temptation by yeilding to it, only set themselves on fire the more.