We have learnt, rather too late, that action comes, not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
Dietrich BonhoefferAs brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
Dietrich BonhoefferAnd we simply cannot be constant with the fact that Godโs cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be โunsuccessfulโ; and yet be on the right road. But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm.
Dietrich BonhoefferIn normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Dietrich BonhoefferThe right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law.
Dietrich BonhoefferIf our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering .
Dietrich Bonhoeffer