M Dietrich Quotes & Sayings

It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter. — Marlene Dietrich

Luther had said that grace alone can save; his followers took up his doctrine and repeated it word for word. But they left out its invariable corollary, the obligation to discipleship ... The justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification of sin and the world. Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without discipleship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm a huge Marlene Dietrich fan. She's got this raunchy kind of strength. It would be hard to find a man who could come up with something hard for her to handle. She's seen it all and done it all. — Jessica Pare

What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm not an actress, I'm a personality. — Marlene Dietrich

Unfortunately I'm not on the same wavelength as Maria yet in the literary sphere. She writes me such good, natural letters, but she reads ... Rilke, Bergengruen, Binding, Wiechert; I regard the last three as being below our level and the first as being decidedly unhealthy. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There's something about an American soldier you can't explain. They're so grateful for anything, even a film actress coming to see them. — Marlene Dietrich

God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But I'm afraid I'm bad at comforting; I can listen all right, but I can hardly ever find anything to say. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I don't exist to teach her a lesson, and it irks me that she thinks labelling me is okay now. Like, by liking guys, I automatically take on that role in her life. That I'm suddenly a supporting character in her story rather than the hero of my own. — Cale Dietrich

To be conformed to the one who has become human - that is what being really human means.[77.] — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If I should still be kept in this hole over Christmas, don't worry about it. I'm not really anxious about it. One can keep Christmas as a Christian even in prison - more easily than family occasions, anyhow. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Is the invisible presence of the Christian fellowship a reality and a help to the individual? Is the Word of God close to him as a comfort and a strength? Or does he misuse his aloneness contrary to the fellowship, the Word, and the prayer? The individual must realize that his hours of aloneness react upon the community. In his solitude he can sunder and besmirch the fellowship, or he can strengthen and hallow it. Every act of self-control of the Christian is also a service to the fellowship. One who returns to the Christian family fellowship after fighting the battle of the day brings with him the blessing of his aloneness, but he himself receives anew the blessing of the fellowship. Blessed is he who is alone in the strength of the fellowship and blessed is he who keeps the fellowship in the strength of aloneness. But the strength of aloneness and the strength of the fellowship is solely the strength of the Word of God, which is addressed to the individual in the fellowship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? ... How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point in your life you are running away from him? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When we come to a clearer and more sober estimate of our own limitations and responsibilities, that makes it possible more genuinely to love our neighbor. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

O endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My mother and my sisters - five girls - were crazy about glamour and Hollywood movies. I styled myself on Veronica Lake and Marlene Dietrich. — Jerry Hall

If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What we are in ourselves, and what we owe to others makes us a complete whole. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

To lose your prejudices you must travel. — Marlene Dietrich

To-day if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Heb. 4:7). That is evangelical preaching. Is this ruthless speed? Nothing could be more ruthless than to make men think there is still plenty of time to mend their ways. To tell men that the cause is urgent, and that the kingdom of God is at hand is the most charitable and merciful act we can perform, the most joyous news we can bring. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Fuck," Dietrich breathed. "I'm a bad motherfucker, and I mean I'm pretty fucked up in the head sometimes, but I want some of what the twins got going between them. That shit right there, was beast." -Dietrich Johnson — Tigris Eden

It's the friends you can call at 4 a.m. that matter. — Marlena Dietrich

I'm now reading Tertullian, Cyprian, and others of the church fathers with great interest. In some ways they are more relevant to our time than the Reformers, and at the same time they provide a basis for talks between Protestants and Roman Catholics. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm worth more dead than alive. Don't cry for me after I'm gone; cry for me now. — Marlene Dietrich

I believe that nothing that happens to me is meaningless and that it is good for us all that it should be so, even if it runs counter to our own wishes. As I see it, I'm here for some purpose, and I only hope I may fulfill it. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I long for people to fall in love with God and each other, and so I'm a big fan of being radically inclusive, whether that means not turning off transsexuals or folks who drive SUVs. But I also became aware of how delicate that venture can prove to be. The temptation we face is to compromise the cost of discipleship, and in the process, the Christian identity can get lost. We don't want folks to walk away. We're driven by a sincere longing for others to know God's love and grace and to experience Christian community. And yet we can end up merely cheapening the very thing we want folks to experience. This is the "cheap grace"4 that spiritual writer and fellow revolutionary Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "the most deadly enemy of the church." And he knew all too well the cost of discipleship; after all, it led to his execution in 1945 for his participation in the Protestant resistance against Hitler. — Shane Claiborne

The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And if we ask how are we to know where our hearts are, the answer is just as simple - everything which hinders us from loving God above all things and acts as a barrier between ourselves and our obedience to Jesus is our treasure, and the place where our heart is. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sex is much better with a woman,
but then one can't live with a woman — Marlene Dietrich

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are only two places where the powerful and great in this world lose their courage, tremble in the depths of their souls, and become truly afraid. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ ... No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle of Bethlehem. And yet, all Christian theology finds its beginnings in the miracle of miracles, that God became human. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But to procrastinate and prevaricate simply because you're afraid of erring, when others - I mean our brethren in Germany - must make infinitely more difficult decisions every day, seems to me almost to run counter to love. To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love. (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, 218) — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If in the middle of an air raid God sends out the gospel call to his kingdom in baptism, it will be quite clear what that kingdom is and what it means. It is a kingdom stronger than war and danger, a kingdom of power and authority, signifying eternal terror and judgment to some, and eternal joy and righteousness to others, not a kingdom of the heart, but one as wide as the earth, not transitory but eternal, a kingdom that makes a way for itself and summons men to itself to prepare its way, a kingdom for which it is worth while risking our lives. - — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's word to me - new every day - in the infinite riches of interpretation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus goes on before to Jerusalem and to the cross, and they are filled with fear and amazement at the road he calls them to follow. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When launching a product called an Energy Drink and named Red Bull, a product that stimulates body and mind, it is a short step to the roots where Red Bull came from. We have been doing this for 20 years - now it's called adventure sports, extreme sports, and outdoor sports. — Dietrich Mateschitz

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God- the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I am not a myth. — Marlene Dietrich

Self-denial is a necessary aspect of a Christian life; that the cross is central to human understanding; and that, without the atonement, every one of us would stand forever in the role of Judas. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christianity community. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But the disciple had the advantage over the Pharisee in that his doing of the law is in fact perfect. How is such a thing possible? Because between the disciples and the law stands one who has perfectly fulfilled it, on with whom they live in communion ... Jesus not only possesses this righteousness, but is himself the personal embodiment of it. He is the righteousness of the disciples ... This is where the righteousness of the disciple exceeds that of the Pharisees; it is grounded solely upon the call to fellowship with him who alone fulfills the law. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music. — Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

I need the Christ that is in you, and you need the Christ that is in me. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer