Quotes about Reflection

Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.

He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.

The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

if a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity

We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics.

It's a great thing learning how to die.

We become like the God/god we behold. We appear like the God/god we admire. We duplicate the God/god we deify. We favor the God/god we follow. We match the God/god we magnify.

Bonhoeffer's change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.

Heroism and ignominy both are part of our history. The only question is whether, having seen both, we can repent of the one and rejoice and be inspired by the other. Or whether we will let one of them tempt us so far away from the other that we have a deeply distorted view.

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

However thankful we may be for all our personal pleasures, we mustn't for a moment lose sight of the great things that we're living for, and they must shed light rather than gloom on your joy.

Bonhoeffer openly thought things through and taught his students to do the same. They followed lines of reasoning to their logical conclusions and considered every angle to have a sense of absolute thoroughness, so that nothing depended on mere emotion.