"If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver."
"The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy."
24 likes
Source: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly (1990). “A testament to freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, Harpercollins
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God."
"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship."
"Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong."
"The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go."
"Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will."