Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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'Reformation theology' … pretends to prefer to Pharasaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world. When that happens, the hallmark of the Church becomes justitia civilis instead of extraordinary visibility. The very failure of the light to shine becomes the touchstone of our Christianity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The sword wherewith they judge their brethren will fall upon their own heads. Instead of cutting themselves off from the brother as the just from the unjust, they find themselves cut off from Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility. For Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Sickened by vermin that feed, in the shade of the good, on envy, greed, and suspicion, by the snake-like hissing of venomous tongues that fear hate and revile the mystery of free thought and upright heart The spirit would cast aside all deceit, open his heart to the spirit he trusts, and unite with him freely as one.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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That was the fatal mistake of the false Protestant ethic which diluted Christian love into patriotism, loyalty to friends, and industriousness, which in short, perverted the better righteousness into justitia civilis.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
