Martin Luther Quotes
-
Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge.
-
In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.
-
so it is with human reason, which strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it.
-
Forgiveness is God's command.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Earth has nothing more tender than a woman's heart when it is the abode of piety.
-
It is impossible for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ he has at the same time all that is in Christ.
-
Lying and guile need only to be revealed and recognized to be undone. When once lying is recognized as such, it needs no second stroke; it falls of itself and vanishes in shame.
-
We need to hear the Gospel every day, because we forget it every day.
-
Christ is the Master; the Scriptures are only the servant. The true way to test all the Books is to see whether they work the will of Christ or not. No Book which does not preach Christ can be apostolic, though Peter or Paul were its author. And no Book which does preach Christ can fail to be apostolic, although Judas, Ananias, Pilate, or Herod were its author.
-
Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God, and does not want God to be God.
-
All seed except Mary was vitiated by original sin.
-
Pray, and let God worry.
-
A great variety of reading confuses and does not teach. It makes the student like a man who dwells everywhere and, therefore, nowhere in particular.
-
There is no rustic so rude but that, if he dreams or fancies anything, it must be the whisper of the Holy Ghost, and he himself a prophet.
-
The Holy Ghost has called me by the gospel and illuminated me with his gifts and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith.
-
Nothing in the world causes so much misery as uncertainty.
-
Our Lord God doeth work like a printer who setteth the letters backwards; we see and feel well his setting, but we shall see the print yonder - in the life to come.
-
Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles... We are beggars: this is true.
-
The believing man hath the Holy Ghost; and where the Holy Ghost dwelleth, He will not suffer a man to be idle, butstirreth him up to all exercises of piety and godliness, and of true religion, to the love of God, to the patient suffering of afflictions, to prayer, to thanksgiving, and the exercise of charity towards all men.
-
May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.
-
Those speak foolishly who ascribe their anger or their impatience to such as offend them or to tribulation. Tribulation does not make people impatient, but proves that they are impatient. So everyone may learn from tribulation how his heart is constituted.
-
Lord God...use me as Your instrument -- but do not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all.