Dietrich Bonhoeffer Love Quotations

The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.

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.

Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.

Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love.

Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.

What is the "extraordinary"? It is the love of Jesus Christ himself, love that goes to the cross in suffering obedience.

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.