Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides reflective, philosophical insight on time, purpose, and value.

13 quotes

1. 'Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.'

2. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self- satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel.

3. Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.

4. What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men.

5. Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

6. Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?

7. There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

8. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.

9. We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

10. There is no kindness more cruel than the kindness which consigns another person to their sin.

11. Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.

12. There is not a place to which the Christian can withdraw from the world, whether it be outwardly or in the sphere of the inner life. Any attempt to escape from the world must sooner or later be paid for with a sinful surrender to the world.

13. Right speech comes out of silence and right silence comes out of speech.