Quotessence
Home / Authors / Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Pastor

Filter quotes by topic

AllChristChristianJesusMenWorldCommunitySufferingIfsSinChurchDiscipleshipGraceKnowsWayCrossesHumansShouldChristianityJesus ChristPrayer

Famous Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

“Blessed are those who are alone in the strength of the community. Blessed are those who preserve community in the strength of solitude. But the strength of solitude and the strength of community is the strength of the Word of God alone, which is meant for the individual in the community.”

CommunityStrengthBlessedAloneLife TogetherDietrich BonhoefferDay Alone
Book:Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Create image

“In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

GodCommunityGratitudeThankfulnessFellowship
Book:Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Create image

“Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone...let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape yourself, for God has singled you out.”

GodFaithJesusCommunityChristianityLonelinessLonelyAloneBeing AloneLoneliness Quotes
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image

“We recognize, then, that only as we are within the fellowship can we be· alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. It is not as though the one preceded the other; both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Jesus Christ.”

CommunityChurchAloneLife TogetherDietrich Bonhoeffer
Book:Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Create image

“Is the invisible presence of the Christian fellowship a reality and a help to the individual? Is the Word of God close to him as a comfort and a strength? Or does he misuse his aloneness contrary to the fellowship, the Word, and the prayer? The individual must realize that his hours of aloneness react upon the community. In his solitude he can sunder and besmirch the fellowship, or he can strengthen and hallow it. Every act of self-control of the Christian is also a service to the fellowship. One who returns to the Christian family fellowship after fighting the battle of the day brings with him the blessing of his aloneness, but he himself receives anew the blessing of the fellowship. Blessed is he who is alone in the strength of the fellowship and blessed is he who keeps the fellowship in the strength of aloneness. But the strength of aloneness and the strength of the fellowship is solely the strength of the Word of God, which is addressed to the individual in the fellowship.”

ChristianCommunityStrengthWord Of GodFellowshipAloneness
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image

“The wish to have everything by one’s own power is false pride. Even what one owes to others belongs nevertheless to oneself and is a piece of one’s own life, and the desire to calculate what one has 'earned' on one’s own and what one owes to others is surely not Christian and is a futile undertaking besides. With what one is in oneself and what one receives, a person is a whole.”

CommunityGratitudeDependenceSharingInterdependenceBonhoeffer
Book:Letters and Papers from Prison
Create image

“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother and sister when we learn to listen to them.”

FriendshipCommunityCommunion With GodSpiritual DisciplinesSpiritual Direction
Book:Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Create image

“l can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitheno may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day. The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.”

HateCommunityChurchPrayerChristian LifeLife TogetherBrother And SisterDietrich Bonhoeffer
Book:Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Create image

“In the first place, the church can ask the state whether its actions are legitimate and in accordance with its character as state, i.e., it can throw the state back on its responsibilities. Secondly, it can aid the victims of state action. The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.”

IfsFirstsStatesCharacterActionChristianAsksCommunityChurchResponsibilityPossibilityThirdsVictimAidsObligationWheelsSpokesUnconditionalBandagesChristian Community
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image

“Will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me becuase it so thoroughly teaches me that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting”

MomentsChristianTogetherJesusChristCommunitySinVisionTeachMorningBrotherJesus ChristDeedsDawnMy BrotherLive ByOne WordMistLiftingDisillusionmentEarly MorningDreamyChristian CommunityForgiveness Of SinsBright DaysMorning Mist
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image

“Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.”

KnowsShouldMayRealStatesFeelingsChristianSpiritualGivenGrowsCommunityPleaseWeakClaimsIncreaseGloriousDay To DayGod KnowsFellowshipTemperaturePulseGift From GodSanctificationTriflingChristian CommunityOnly God Knows
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone... Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.”

WantSelfFeelingsCommunitySolitudeDespairProfoundVanityVoidAbyssInfatuationPerilFellowshipPlungePitfalls
Book:Life Together
Create image

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream… Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

IfsHumansMayWholeDreamChristianWishCommunityHonestBrokenIntentionGenuineLatterEarnestDestroyersHindranceSprungBroken DownChristian Community
Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Create image