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Books by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
No Rusty Swords /
The Cost of Discipleship /
Letters and Papers from Prison /
Sanctorum Communio
A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings /
Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible /
Ethics
No Difference in the Fare: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Racism
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Letters and Papers from Prison
Excerpts
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
edited by Eberhard Bethge
/ Translated by Reginald H. Fuller
Macmillan 1953 On Style
"An author's style is often
by itself enough to attract or repel." [DB speaking of 19th-century German writers]
Sunday, July 27th 1943
Prison Life
"Prison life seems to give one a certain detachment from
the alarums and excitement of the day."August 17th 1943
A Lesson on Dependency
"It's a queer feeling to be so utterly dependent on the
help of others, but at least it teaches one to be grateful, a
lesson I hope I shall never forget. In normal life we hardly
realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot
be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate
the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe
to the help of others." September 13th 1943
Luther's "Freedom of the Christian Man"
"He [Luther] desired a real unity both for the Church
and for Western Christendom, but the consequence was the ruin of
both. He sought the 'Freedom of the Christian Man', and the
consequence was apathy and barbarism. He hoped to see the
establishment of a genuine social order free from clerical
privilege, and the outcome was the Peasant's revolt, and soon
afterwards the gradual dissolution of all real cohesion and
order in society. I remember from my student days a debate
between Holl and Harnack as to whether in any movement it was
the primary or the secondary motives which finally
prevailed." October 31st 1943
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Old Testament & Liberty
"Why is it that the Old Testament never punishes a man
by depriving him of his liberty." November 20th 1943
On Bombings near Berlin
"It is interesting how superstition thrives in times
like these and how many are ready to listen, at least with half
an ear." November 28th 1943
Great Battles & Skirmishes
"Great battles are easier to fight than daily
skirmishes." December 15th 1943
Bonhoeffer's cell
in Tegel. |
The Unexpected
"It is the unexpected that happens"
December 17th 1943
Voyages of Literary Discovery
"A spiritual heritage reaching back for centuries is a
wonderful support and comfort in face of all temporary stresses
and strains. I believe that the man who is aware of such
reserves of power need not be ashamed of the tender feelings
evoked by the memory of a rich and noble past, for such feelings
belong in my opinion to the better and nobler part of
mankind." December 17th 1943
The Will of God
"Of course, not everything that happens
is the will of God, yet in the last resort nothing happens
without his will (Matt. 10:29)" December 18th 1943
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Longing for the Transcendent
"But, frankly speaking, to long for the
transcendent when you are in your wife's arms is, to put it
mildly, a lack of taste., and it is certainly not what God
expects of us. We ought to find God and love him in the
blessings he sends us. If he pleases to grant us some
overwhelming earthly bliss, we ought not to try and be more
religious than God himself. For then we should spoil that bliss
by our presumption and arrogance; we should be letting our
religious fantasies run riot and refusing to be satisfied with
what he gives. Once a man has found God in his earthly bliss and
thanked him for it, there will be plenty of opportunities for
him to remind himself that these earthly pleasures are only
transitory and that it is good for him to accustom himself to
the idea of the eternity and there will be more hours in which
he can say with all sincerity, 'I would that I were home'.
Bonhoeffer was hanged in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9,
1945 |
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"But everything in its season, and the
important thing is to keep step with God, and not get a step or
two in front of him (nor for that matter, a step or two behind
him either). It is arrogance to want to have everything at
once--matrimonial bliss, and the cross, and the heavenly
Jerusalem., where there is no marriage, nor giving in marriage.
'To everything there is a season' (Ecclesiastes 3)."
December 18th 1943
Duty to the Past
"Goodness, beauty, and truth, however,
and all great accomplishments need time, permanence, and
memory., or lese they deteriorate. The man who has no urge to do
his duty to the past and to shape the future is a man without a
memory, and there seems to me no way of getting hold of such a
person and bringing him to his senses. Every word, even if it
impresses him for a moment, goes through one ear and out of the
other. What is to be done with him? It is a tremendous pastoral
problem."
February 1st 1944
Simplicity & Simpleness
'Simplicity is an ethical category.
Simplicity is a quality which can be acquired, simpleness is
innate. Simplicty may be acquired by education and may be
cultivated, and indeed it is one of the essential objects of
education and culture. Simpleness is a gift. the two things are
related, it seems to me, much as purity and moderation. One can
only be pure in relation to one's origin or goal, i.e., in
relation to baptism or forgiveness in the Eucharist. like
simpleness, it is a category which denotes integrity. Once we
have lost that purity and we all have lost it--it can only be
granted again in faith. But in ourselves, as living and growing
persons, we can no longer be pure, but only moderate and that is
a proper and necessary object of education and culture."
February 12th 1944
Living with Adversity
"I think we should live even in this place as though we
had no desires and no future to hope for, and just be our true
selves. It is remarkable what an influence one acquires in this
way over other men. . . . We can have a full life even when we
haven't got everything we want--that is what I am really trying
to say."
March 19th 1944
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God Out the World
"I began by saying that God is increasingly edged out of
the world, now that it has come of age, knowledge and life are
thought to be perfectly possible without him. Ever since Kant,
he has been relegated to the realm beyond experience."
June 30th 1944
Inner & Outer
"The Bible does not recognize our distinction of outer
inner and 'inner."
"The discovery of inwardness, so called, derives from
the renaissance, from Petrarch perhaps."
"The 'heart' in the biblical sense is not the inward
life, but the whole man in relation to God"
July 8th 1944
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Metanoia
"It is not some religious act which makes a Christian
what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the
life of the world.
July 18th 1944
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updated 6 October 2007 |
