We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We should never argue with the devil about our sins, but we should speak about our sins only with Jesus.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What is worse than doing evil, is being evil” (Ethics, p.67). To lie is wrong, but what is worse than the lie is the liar, for the liar contaminates everything he says, because everything he says is meant to further a cause that is false. The liar as liar has endorsed a world of falsehood and deception, and to focus only on the truth or falsity of his particular statements is to miss the danger of being caught up in his twisted world. This is why, as Bonhoeffer says, that “(i)t is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie” (Ethics, p.67).

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ then we pray correctly.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer