Quotes from Martin Luther

The law of God cannot be fulfilled by external obedience.

How can a reason which hates God be called sound?

All creatures are merely veils under which God hides Himself and deals with us.

[Our] plan is to follow the example of the prophets and the ancient fathers of the church, and to compose psalms...so that the Word of God may be among the people also in the form of music.

God himself will milk the cows through him whose vocation that is.

Whoso hearkens not to God's voice, is an idolator, though he perform the highest and most heavy service of God.

Someone asked Luther, "Do you feel that you've been forgiven?" He answered, "No, but I'm as sure As there's a God in Heaven!"

If the heart has been reformed by the spirit, it makes use of both the useful and delightful things created and given by God in a holy manner and with thanksgiving.

The true despisers of the world are the people who accept what God sends them, gratefully use all things when they have them, and gladly do without them if God takes them away

Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly. You have been, about fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God.

The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.

He who hears this name [God] from a Jew must inform the authorities, or else throw sow dung at him when he sees him and chase him away.

Adam was created, as it were, intoxicated with rejoicing toward God and was delighted also with all the other creatures.

Of all deadly sins, this is the most deadly, namely, that any one should think he is not guilty of a damnable and deadly sin before God.

Exhort your household to learn [the Ten Commandments] word for word, that they should obey God…For if you teach and urge your families things will go forward.

Isaiah calls the Church barren because her children are born without effort by the Word of faith through the Spirit of God. It is a matter of birth, not of exertion.

It is the most ungodly and dangerous business to abandon the certain and revealed will of God in order to search in to the hidden mysteries of God.

All who call on God in true faith earnestly from the heart will certainly be heard and will receive what they have asked and desired.

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.

If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.

At Sussen, the Devil carried off, last Good Friday, three grooms who had devoted themselves to him.

Before every great opportunity God gave me a great trial.

The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay.

No one may forsake their neighbors when they are in trouble. Everybody is under obligation to help and support their neighbors as they would themselves like to be helped.