Explore Quotes by Martin Luther

Of whom shall I be afraid? One with God is a majority.

No man understands the Scriptures, unless he be acquainted with the Cross.

It is certainly true that reason is the most important and the highest rank among all things and, in comparison with other things of this life, the best and something divine. It is the inventor and mentor of all the arts, medicines, laws, and of whatever wisdom, power, virtue, and glory men possess in this life.

If God were willing to sell His grace, we would accept it more quickly and gladly than when He offers it for nothing.

Hereby we may understand that God, of His special grace, maketh the teachers of the gospel subject to the Cross, and to all kinds of afflicitons, for the salvation of themselves and of the people; for otherwise they could by no means beat down this beast which is called vain-glory.

The article of justification is fragile. Not in itself, of course, but in us. I know how quickly a person can forfeit the joy of the Gospel.

Being by his faith replaced afresh in paradise and created anew, he (the believer)does not need works for his justification, but that he may not be idle, but that he may exercise his own body and preserve it. His works are to be done freely, with the sole object of pleasing God.

What man, if he were God, would humble himself to lie in the feedbox of a donkey or to hang upon a cross?

The world doesn't want to be punished. It wants to remain in darkness. It doesn't want to be told that what it believes is false. If you also don't want to be corrected, then you might as well leave the church and spend your time at the bar and brothel. But if you want to be saved-and remember that there's another life after this one-you must accept correction.

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.

The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; _x000D_ Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing: _x000D_ For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; _x000D_ His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate, _x000D_ On earth is not his equal.

Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach.

We need to hear the Gospel every day, because we forget it every day.

But Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all (which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected) he hath raised up a sect of such as teach that the Ten Commandments ought to be taken out of the church, and that men should not be terrified with the law, but gently exerted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.

The will of man without the grace of God is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil since it cannot turn itself to good.

Though we be active in the battle, if we are not fighting where the battle is the hottest, we are traitors to the cause.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative light of altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life's persistent and most urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?'

Faith does not inquire whether there are good works to be done, but even before asking questions, faith has done the works already.

Over against the devil and his missionaries, the authors of false doctrines and sects, we ought to be like the Apostle, impatient, and rigorously condemnatory, as parents are with the dog that bites their little one, but the weeping child itself they soothe.

Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace to idolatry.