"Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us."

"Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes."

"The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words."

"If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it."

"Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian's life."

"Sanctification means that the Christians have been judged already, and that they are being preserved until the coming of Christ and are ever advancing towards it."

"The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day."

"Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been given such immense freedom and power to take the helm in their life’s journey…"

"Neighbourliness is not a quality in other people, it is simply their claim on ourselves."

"The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history... there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him."

"Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man."

"In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner."

"If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction."

"Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue."

"May God in his mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may he lead us to himself."

"The world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service."

"The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise godfearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ."

"The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus' hands."

"A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt."

"We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace."

"Nothing can be known either of God or man until God has become man in Jesus Christ."

"Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God."

"Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil."

"Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it."

"The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine."

"Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us."

"The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of Jesus Christ"

"[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality."

"Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters."

"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."

"There can be no real attachment to the given creation, no genuine responsibility in the world, unless we recognize the breach which already separates us from it."

"Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day."

"Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master. Following Christ means passio passiva, suffering because we have to suffer."

"My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified."

"There is a wrong way of staying in the world and a wrong way of fleeing from it. In both cases we are fashioning ourselves according to the world."

"In short, it is much easier to see a thing through from the point of view of abstract principle than from that of concrete responsibility."

"It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie."

"The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on the contrary, its validation. One does not use canons to shoot sparrows."

"The brother is a burden to the Christian, precisely because he is a Christian. For the pagan the other person never becomes a burden at all. He simply sidesteps every burden that others may impose upon him."

"The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man."

"As Christians, we needn’t be at all ashamed of some impatience, longing, opposition to what is unnatural, and our full share of desire for freedom, earthly happiness, and opportunity for effective work."

"The task is not to turn the world upside down but in a given place to do what, from the perspecive of reality, is necessary objectively and to really carry it out."

"Advent creates people, new people."

"A false faith is capable of terrible and monstrous things."

"This is the end. For me the beginning of life."

"Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment."

"How impossible, how utterly absurd it would be for the disciples--these disciples, such men as these!--to try and become the light of the world! No, they are already the light, and the call has made them so."

"[...]he who can speak out of the abundance of God's Word, the wealth of directions, admonitions, and consolations of the Scriptures, will be able through God's Word to drive out demons and help his brother."

"Nevertheless, it is the free grace of the resurrected One that now also goes after the individual, overcomes the doubter, and creates in him the Easter faith."