We've gone all the way from foolishly accepting authority to foolishly rejecting all authority.

The more science learns, the clearer it is that although we are here, we shouldn't be. Once we begin considering the details of it all, the towering odds against our existence begin to become a bit unsettling. When we come to see the superlatively extreme precariousness of our existence, and begin to understand how by any accounting, we ought not to exist, what are we to think or feel? Our existence seems to be not merely a virtually impossible miracle but the most outrageous miracle conceivable, one that makes previously amazing miracles seem like almost nothing.

Bonhoeffer knew that twisting the Truth to sell it more effectively was inexcusable. For Bonhoeffer the challenge was to present the Truth as purely as possible without attempting to help it along or dress it up.

Ever heard of anyone executed for distributing copies of Grimm's fairy tales? Imagine people trying to smuggle copies of Hans Christian Andersen's works into China? The Bible, which has been called a mere collection of myths has suffered all of these fates: even today, copies of the Bible are banned and burned. There's something about this ancient book that threatens and frightens those in power.

The family trees of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer are everywhere so laden with figures of accomplishment that one might expect future generations to be burdened by it all. But the welter of wonderfulness that was their heritage seemed to have been a boon, one that buoyed them up so that each child seems not only to have stood on the shoulders of giants but also to have danced on them.

Christianity contains within itself a germ hostile to the Church (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

The 'success' of the sermon is utterly dependent on the God who breaks through and 'grasps' us, or we cannot be 'grasped.