In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.

A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

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

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.

The church ... is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.

One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.