Martin Luther Quotes

What is it to serve God and to do His will? Nothing else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our own neighbor who needs our service; God in heaven needs it not.

It is not necessary for a preacher to express all his thoughts in one sermon. A preacher should have three principles: first, to make a good beginning, and not spend time with many words before coming to the point; secondly, to say that which belongs to the subject in chief, and avoid strange and foreign thoughts; thirdly, to stop at the proper time.

There is no gown or garment that worse becomes a woman than when she will be wise.

False preachers are worse than deflowerers of virgins.

Nothing is more unbecoming to a teacher of the Word than flippancy. He must be serious and should not act like a clown.

A lie is like a snowball: the further you roll it the bigger it becomes.

At the last, when we die, we have the dear angels for our escort on the way. They who can grasp the whole world in their hands can surely also guard our souls, that they make that last journey safely.

Albert Durer, the famous painter, used to say he had no pleasure in pictures that were painted with many colors, but in those which were painted with a choice simplicity. So it is with me as to sermons.

A preacher should have the skill to teach the unlearned simply roundly, and plainly; for teaching is of more importance than exhorting.

He who loves not women, wine, and song Remains a fool his whole life long.

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

We ought first to know that there are no good works except those which God has commanded, even as there is no sin except that which God has forbidden.

There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books.

God's love does not love that which is worthy of being loved, but it creates that which is worthy of being loved.

Singing has nothing to do with the affairs of this world: it is not for the law. Singers are merry, and free from sorrows and cares.

I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.

In a delightful garden, sowing, planting or digging are not hardship but are done with a zeal and a certain pleasure.

Heaven and earth, all the emperors, kings, and princes of the world, could not raise a fit dwelling-place for God; yet, in a weak human soul, that keeps His Word, He willingly resides.

The article of justification is fragile. Not in itself, of course, but in us. I know how quickly a person can forfeit the joy of the Gospel.

Your God is altogether too human.

The heavenly blessing is to be delivered from the law, sin and death; to be justified and quickened to life: to have peace with God; to have a faithful heart, a joyful conscience, a spiritual consolation; to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ; to have the gift of prophecy, and the revelation of the Scriptures; to have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to rejoice in God.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.

In truth you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well.

True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.

To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

What will you do in the mundane days of faithfulness?

The Devil, it is true, is not exactly a doctor who has taken degrees, but he is very learned, very expert for all that. He has not been carrying on his business during thousands of years for nothing.

There can be no be no better instruction... than that every man who is to deal with his neighbor to follow these commandments. 'Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them,' and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' If these were always followed, then everything would instruct and arrange itself; then no law books nor courts nor judicial actions would be required. All things would quietly and simply be set to rights, for everyone's heart and conscience would guide them.

God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.

If men only believe enough in Christ they can commit adultery and murder a thousand times a day without periling their salvation.

It would be a good thing if young people were wise and old people were strong, but God has arranged things better.

The true despisers of the world are the people who accept what God sends them, gratefully use all things when they have them, and gladly do without them if God takes them away

I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure. . . . When letters have declined and lain prostrate, theology, too, has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate. . . . It is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily.

It was with good reason that God commanded through Moses that the vineyard and harvest were not to be gleaned to the last grape or grain; but something to be left for the poor. For covetousness is never to be satisfied; the more it has, the more it wants. Such insatiable ones injure themselves, and transform God's blessings into evil.

If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words 'I baptise thee in the name of Abraham'.

The hair is the richest ornament of women.

The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.

A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.

Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body.

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.

For it is a horrible blasphemy to imagine that there is any work by which you should presume to pacify God, since you see that there is nothing which is able to pacify Him but this inestimable price, even the death and the blood of the Son of God, one drop of which is more precious than the whole world.

That little bird has chosen his shelter. Above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds. Yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring for tomorrow's lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig, and leaving God to think for him.

Our God is the God from whom cometh salvation: God is the Lord by who escape death.

Here I stand; I can do no other.

It is not the imitation that makes sons; it is sonship that makes imitators.

Whoever has skill in music is of good temperament and fitted for all things. We must teach music in schools.