Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes About Evil

Quotes about: Evil

• Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Love Is, Judging Yourself, Evil

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.129, SCM Press

• Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Evil, Silence, Faces

• The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods . . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Peace, Hate, War

• Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Evil, Combat, Refuse

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.70, SCM Press

• Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil--and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Jesus, Children, Fall

• The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Christian, Light, Justice

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

• The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Real, Evil, Guilt

• 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

  Christmas, Men, Light

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.5, Westminster John Knox Press

• Jesus is no draughtsman of political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to
  Jesus.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Jesus, Real, Evil

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.144, Simon and Schuster

• ...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Christmas, Eye, Dark

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.5, Westminster John Knox Press

• 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.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Real, People, Evil

• 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

  Christian, Jesus, Self

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.92, SCM Press

• 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.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Jesus, Law, Evil

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.91, SCM Press

• Still more pathetic is the total collapse of moral fanaticism. Fanatics think that their single-minded principles qualify them to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull they rush at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; he exhausts himself and is beaten. He gets entangled in non-essentials and falls into the trap set by cleverer people.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Fall, Thinking, People

  "Letters and Papers from Prison (Who Stands Fast?)". Book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (p. 4), 1967.

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