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By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
Absolute
Affirms
Overcoming
Adherence
Freedom
Willingly
Jesus
Defence
Evil
Overcome
Christian
Ego
Power
Tyranny
Exclusiveness
Self
Absolutes
Renouncing

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law.
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The church ... is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.
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While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction.
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The time is short. Eternity is long. It is the time of decision.
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Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
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He who loves community destroys community he who loves the brethren builds community.
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The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God.
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It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
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The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.
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When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself - a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man,...and throws himself into the arms of God...then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.
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One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
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Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.
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God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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We have learnt, rather too late, that action comes, not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
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Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men, but only in the sight of God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.
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God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer