Quotes & Sayings About Luther

Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people. — Martin Luther

But lost in that sea of (valid) criticism is the perhaps subtler critique that in an age of consumerism, economic imperialism and what Martin Luther King Jr. called "jumboism," the sacrificial way of Jesus may be calling us to forsake the supersized life. — C. Christopher Smith

A large number of deaf, crippled and blind people are afflicted solely through the malice of the demon. And one must in no wise doubt that plagues, fevers and every sort of evil come from him. — Martin Luther

Tobak Davenport, who is a cross between some Sugar Puffs and Lynn Faulds-Wood, was squatting there before being removed by the local constabulary after he went round to complain about Luther Blisset's pet turkey fouling the communal herb garden. — St John Morris

Remember Martin Luther's way of cutting the devil's head off with his own sword. "Oh," said the devil to Martin Luther, "you are a sinner." "Yes," said Luther, Christ died to save sinners." Thus he smote him with his own sword. Hide in this refuge and stay there: "In due time Christ died for the ungodly. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library. — Luther Standing Bear

Paul makes it clear enough that it takes more than an Abrahamic pedigree to be a child of God. To be a child of God requires faith in Christ. — Martin Luther

Your self-sacrificin g devotion to your purpose in life and your unwavering faith will carry you through times of difficulty. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good. — Luther Burbank

God does not love sinners because they are attractive; sinners are attractive to God because he loves them. — Martin Luther

The Clergy is the greatest hindrance to faith. — Martin Luther

From the beginning of my Reformation I have asked God to send me neither dreams, nor visions, nor angels, but to give me the right understanding of His Word, the Holy Scriptures; for as long as I have God's Word, I know that I am walking in His way and that I shall not fall into any error or delusion. — Martin Luther

Preach [and live] as if Jesus was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is returning tomorrow. — Martin Luther

We are so unrepentant that we would rather perish than confess truthfully that we are sinners and justify God by means of confession. David justified the prophet Nathan's words: 'You are an adulterer, a murderer, and a blasphemer.' When David heard this, he was chastened and replied: 'The words are true.' He confessed his sins immediately and received forgiveness. Nathan did not write David a letter of indulgence, nor did he say to him: 'Make a pilgrimage to St. James, or have Masses read; or lie down in a hairy garment!' No, he said: 'The Lord has removed your sin. — Martin Luther

I hate it when people quote me on the internet, claiming I said things that I never actually said. — Martin Luther King Jr.

For such unjust acts of robbery lead automatically to vengeance and punishments, as Augustine's statement bears out. "Gain in the coffer," he says, "harm in the conscience." 55 No unjust gain is without most unjust harm. — Martin Luther

When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it embraces all Heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a whisper. — Martin Luther

Hrist and his word can hardly be recognized because of the great vermin of human ordinances. However, let this suffice for the time being on their lies against doctrine or faith. — Martin Luther

The most dangerous type of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical atheism -that's the most dangerous type. And the world, even the church, is filled up with people who pay lip service to God and not life service. And there is always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don't. We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never existed. That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That's a dangerous type of atheism. — Martin Luther King Jr.

A woman can have a smile, and a woman can have a large backside, but I have been to the mountain and I am here to tell you that when a woman has both of those things she is not to be trusted. — Martin Luther King Jr.

All which happens through the whole world happens through hope. No husbandman would sow a grain of corn if he did not hope it would spring up and bring forth the ear; how much more we are helped on by hope in the eternal life. — Martin Luther

Not only the adoration of images is idolatry, but also trust in one's own righteousness, works and merits, and putting confidence in riches and power. As the latter is the commonest, so it also is the most noxious. — Martin Luther

I must face the fact, as all others in positions of leadership must do, that America today is an extremely sick nation, and that something could well happen to me at any time. I feel, though, that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life, in some way it would aid the cause. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In the same way, people who sleep when they should be working are testing God. Because God promised to take care of them, they assume that God will find a way. But in Proverbs, God told them to work: "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (Proverbs 10:4). — Martin Luther

All laws and philosophy merely tell us what should be done, but they do not provide the strength to do it. — Martin Luther

[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and ... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech always sends me down some path, some trajectory of some creative idea. — Abigail Washburn

Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The devil should not be allowed to keep all the best tunes for himself. — Martin Luther

Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine. — Martin Luther

If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake - if anyone set up its observance on a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall remove this encroachment on Christian liberty. — Martin Luther

I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men. — Martin Luther

In the far corner, a tenor began to sing, Zsadist's crystal-clear voice sailing up toward the warrior paintings on the ceiling far, far above them all. At first John didn't know what the song was ... although if he'd been asked what his name was, he would have said Santa Claus, or Luther Vandross, or Teddy Roosevelt.
Maybe even Joan Collins. — J.R. Ward

The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid. — Martin Luther

When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Second, as Luther stated, because God's love isn't caused by its object, it can love those who are not lovable, "sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong". Luther concluded, "rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good". — Miroslav Volf

It may sound strange, but I get the inspiration for most of my Dreams while I'm sleeping. — Mark W. Boyer

How foolish it was of Christ to purchase for us at the price of his shed blood the Spirit we did not need, in order that we might be given a facility in keeping the commandments, who we already have one by nature. — Martin Luther

Though in midst of life we be
Snares of death surround us. — Martin Luther

By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart. — Martin Luther King Jr.

What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness? — Martin Luther King Jr.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If you can't run then walk If you can't walk then crawl but whatever you do don't give up — Martin Luther King Jr.

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force. — Martin Luther King Jr.

All these things He must be in me, abiding, living, speaking in me; that I may be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. v. 21); not in love, nor in gifts and graces which follow; but in Him. — Martin Luther

What victims need are not self-produced positive statements but God's statements about his response to their pain. How can you be rid of these dysfunctional emotions and their effects? How can you be rid of your disgrace? God's grace to you dismantles the beliefs that give disgrace life. Grace re-creates what violence destroyed. Martin Luther writes that "the love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it." One-way love is the change agent you need. Grace transforms and heals; and healing comes by hearing God's statements to you, not speaking your own statements to yourself. — Justin S. Holcomb

The Holy Scriptures surpass in efficaciousness all the arts and all the sciences of the philosophers and jurists; these, though good and necessary to life here below, are vain and of no effect as to what concerns the life eternal. — Martin Luther

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King is a notorious liar[] — John G. Schmitz

I have done nothing; the Word has done and accomplished everything ... I let the Word do its work! — Martin Luther

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays' Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people ... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie ... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it's down to us. — Jim Hightower

Detroit was an exaggeration of what was going on across the country. You could see the divisions, even within the Civil Rights Movement of that period. At the same time that Martin Luther King was talking about his dream, Malcolm X gave his most famous address in Detroit during that same period, "The Message To The Grass Roots," dismissing the notion of integration. — David Maraniss

However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath. — Martin Luther

A man must be able to affirm, I know for certain, that what I teach is the only Word of the high Majesty of God in heaven, his final conclusion and everlasting, unchangeable truth, and whatsoever concurs and agrees not with this doctrine, is altogether false, and spun by the devil. — Martin Luther

All creatures are merely veils under which God hides Himself and deals with us. — Martin Luther

When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which a person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own but that of another, Christ. — Martin Luther

I would suffer all the humiliation, all the torture, the absolute ostracism and even death, to prevent violence — Martin Luther King Jr.

Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been. — Martin Luther King Jr.

What is it to serve God and to do His will? Nothing else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our own neighbor who needs our service; God in heaven needs it not. — Martin Luther

Great thieves go Scott-free, as the Pope and his crew. — Martin Luther

Undoubtedly they do more and viler things than those which we know and discover — Martin Luther

I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of him than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light. His memory calls forth my most sincere homage, love, and esteem.

{Burbank on the great Robert Ingersoll, whom he admired so much that he requested Ingersoll's eulogy for his brother, Ebon Ingersoll, to be read at his own funeral} — Luther Burbank

We should give heed to what has been said by the heathen poet: "Do not yield to evils but proceed more boldly against them."15 — Martin Luther

To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it. — Pope Francis

We may now understand how spiritual life originates. It enters the heart by faith. Christ reigns in the heart with His Holy Spirit, who sees, hears, speaks, works, suffers, and does all things in and through us over the protest and the resistance of the flesh. — Martin Luther

Violence is anything that denies human integrity, and leads to hopelessness and helplessness. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideals hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different. — Martin Luther King Jr.

[Martin Luther King, Jr.] concluded the learned discourse that came to be known as the 'loving your enemies' sermon this way: 'So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you,'I love you. I would rather die than hate you.'
Go ahead and reread that. That is hands down the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical thing a human being can say. And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. — Sarah Vowell

Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more. — Martin Luther

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights. — Marianne Williamson

Hate is too big of burden to bear. I have decided to love. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Hungry hearts appreciate Christ. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Christ's benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them. — Martin Luther

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Luther's early position proclaimed that everyone, including "the humble miller's maid, nay, a child of nine," could interpret the Bible. However, as Christianity began to fracture, he radically altered his position. He called the Bible the "heresy book." In 1525 he wrote: "There are as many sects and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow will have nothing to do with baptism; another denies the sacraments; a third believes that there is another world between this and the Last Day. Some teach that Christ is not God; some say this, some say that. There is no rustic so rude but that, if he dreams or fancies anything, it must be the whisper of the Holy Spirit and he himself is a prophet."104 — James M. Seghers

When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children. — Martin Luther

Science, unlike theology, never leads to insanity. — Luther Burbank

Luther had passed many a white church in his day, heard them singing their hymns and chanting their "Amens" and seen them gather on a porch or two afterward with their lemonade and piety, but he knew if he ever showed up on their steps, starving or injured, the only response he'd get to a plea for human kindness would be the amen of a shotgun pointed in his face. — Dennis Lehane

Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear always precedes the crown we wear. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Our bodies are always exposed to Satan. The maladies I suffer are not natural, but Devil's spells. — Martin Luther

This doctrine (justification) is the head and the cornerstone. It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour. — Martin Luther

The heavenly blessing is to be delivered from the law, sin and death; to be justified and quickened to life: to have peace with God; to have a faithful heart, a joyful conscience, a spiritual consolation; to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ; to have the gift of prophecy, and the revelation of the Scriptures; to have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to rejoice in God. — Martin Luther

We should consider the histories of Christ three manner of ways; first, as a history of acts or legends; second, as a gift or a present; thirdly, as an example, which we should believe and follow. — Martin Luther

But I did that, and I created another blues scene, another something I can sing about. — Luther Allison

Earlier, at the first Methodist Conference in 1744, Wesley had advised his helpers and assistants to preach Christ in all his offices and "to declare his law as well as his gospel, both to believers and unbelievers."52 In this counsel, then, the moral law holds great value not only in convicting sinners but also in keeping believers in Christ. That is, Wesley highlighted both the accusatory role of the law, in a way similar to Luther,53 as well as the prescriptive role of this same law, in a way similar to Calvin;54 the one to bring sinners to Christ; the other to keep believers alive in the Lord. — Kenneth J. Collins

Luther was an extraordinary man of prayer himself. Veit Dietrich, one of Luther's friends, wrote: "There is not a day on which he does not devote at least three hours, the very ones most suitable for [work], to prayer. Once I was fortunate to overhear his prayer. Good God, what faith in his words! He speaks with the great reverence of one who speaks to his God, and with the trust and hope of one who speaks with his father and friend."163 Peter — Timothy Keller

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

That is what Reason can neither grasp nor endure, and what has offended all these men of outstanding talent who have been so received for so many centuries. Here they demand that God should act according to human justice, and do what seems right to them or else cease to be God. — Martin Luther

I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us. — Martin Luther

Medicine makes people ill, mathematics make them sad and theology makes them sinful. — Martin Luther

Evil must be attacked by ... the day to day assault of the battering rams of justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It is, then, not simply a question of black power or white power, but of how meaningfully to reenfranchise human power. This, as I think Martin Luther King understood, is the real point, the real gift to America, of the struggle of the black people. In accepting the humanity of the black race, the white people will not be giving accommodation to an alien people; it will be receiving into itself half of its own experience, vital and indispensable to it, which it has so far denied at great cost. — Wendell Berry

Life in Christ is not meant to mirror life in a Greco-Roman culture. An ancient Middle Eastern culture is not our standard. We are not meant to adopt the world of Luther's Reformation or the culture of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening or even 1950s America as our standard for righteousness. The culture, past or present, isn't the point: Jesus and his Kingdom come, his will done, right now - that is the point. — Sarah Bessey