Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

As long as you are proud, you cannot know God.

Egotism, pride, etc. must be given up.

There is no harder lesson for man to learn than the lesson of humility. It is the rarest of all gifts. It is a very rare thing to find a man or woman that is following closely the footsteps of the Master in meekness and humility.

At my funeral, if one said, 'Nick was a generous person,' trust me I won't be doing cartwheels in my coffin. Recognition from people is never and never will be a goal. Some people strive for that respect or honor. Living a life to just reach for the position and status is vanity and sin.

From compassion springs humility. The ego is verily a gateway to hell. The person who is egoistic is far from being religious.

I believe firmly that it was the Almighty's goodness, to check my consummate vanity.

I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical.

The reason why I meditate and pray in general is just to remind myself that it is not about me.

Holy humility confounds pride and all the men of this world and all things that are in the world.

humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

God cannot be realizxd if there is the slightest trace of pride.

I pray without ceasing now. My personal prayer is: Make me an instrument which only truth can speak.

But the very act of pausing in a busy day to pray is an act of weakening pride in my life, acknowledging that I am a dependent creature. I am not self sufficient.

My favoured temple is an humble heart.

One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides.

You can't have ego and gratitude at the same time.

All I really want - when I pray , I don't really ask for anything. All I want to do is God's will and make the best decisions I can. I don't go out and preach.

We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends for modesty, freshness, and simplicity of heart. Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility - in other people.

I pray every night, sometimes long prayers about a lot of things and a lot of people, but I don't talk about it or brag about it because that's between God and me, and I'm no better than anybody else in God's sight.

If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.