Martin Luther Quotes

I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war.

I'll trust in God's unchanging Word, till soul and body sever. For though all things pass away, His Word shall stand forever.

May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint! I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.

Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace to idolatry.

The word and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes.

God is not a God of sadness, death, etc., but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy, and so the Scriptures often say that we should rejoice ... A Christian should and must be a cheerful person.

The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that he sunk himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding.

The first thing I ask is that people should not make use of my name, and should not call themselves Lutherans but Christians. What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone...How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name?

Forgiveness is God's command.

I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them.

All the passages in the Holy Scriptures that mention assistance are they that do away with "free-will", and these are countless...For grace is needed, and the help of grace is given, because "free-will" can do nothing.

What would it matter if, for the sake of the Christian Church, one were to tell a big lie?

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.

He that will maintain that man's free will is able to do or work anything in spiritual cases, be they never so small, denies Christ.

I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone.

God can be found only in suffering and the cross.

There are two days in my calendar: This day and that Day.

Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly. You have been, about fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God.

Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety?

Faith, like light, should always be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.

God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God.

I would not give one moment of heaven for all the joy and riches of the world, even if it lasted for thousands and thousands of years.

When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it embraces all Heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a whisper.

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a begging.

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.

For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.

Nothing good ever comes of violence.

God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing

The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, & the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions - surer & more certain than sense & life itself.

If a man serves not God only, then surely he serves the devil.

Blood alone moves the wheels of history.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative light of altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life's persistent and most urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?'

Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach.

Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.

When some say that good works are forbidden when we preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: "If you had health, you would have the use of all your limbs; but without health, the works of all your limbs are nothing"; and he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs.

Show me where a man spends his time & money, and I'll show you his god.

The hair is the finest ornament women have. Of old, virgins used to wear it loose, except when they were in mourning.

If you want to interpret well and confidently, set Christ before you, for He is the man to whom it all applies, every bit of it.

A gospel that doesn't deal with the issues of the day is not the gospel at all.

Many demons are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark poolly places ready to hurt...people.

Many sweat to reconcile St Paul and St James, but in vain. 'Faith justifies' and 'faith does not justify' contradict each other flatly. If any one can harmonize them I will give him my doctor's hood and let him call me a fool.

For God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, he is behind you and before you. Do you think he is sleeping on a pillow in heaven? He is watching over you and protecting you.

The gospel cannot be preached and heard enough, for it cannot be grasped well enough ... Moreover, our greatest task is to keep you faithful to this article and to bequeath this treasure to you when we die.

Here again you confuse and mix everything up in your usual way.

If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.

In this Revolution no plans have been written for retreat.

The prosperity of a country depends, not on the abundance of its revenues, nor on the strength of its fortifications, nor on the beauty of its public buildings; but it consists in the number of its cultivated citizens, in its men of education, enlightenment and character.