Quotes About Luther

Luther, the hero of Worms, the champion of the sacred rights of conscience, was, in words, the most violent, but in practice, the least intolerant, among the Reformers.

If ever a monk got to heaven by monkery," says Luther, "I ought to have gotten there.

I'm a pastor. I lead Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served.

Luther said, `All Christians are priests and all priests are Christians. Anathema to him who distinguishes the priest from the simple Christian.i4' Luther argued that the simple milkmaid or the tailor with the word of God in his or her hands was able to please God and minister the things of God as effectively as the priest, the prelate and the pope himself. `Ordination does not make a priest, but a servant of priests ... a servant and an officer of the common priesthood.i41

Luther's celebrated statement concerning the qualifications of a true theologian: `living, or rather dying and being damned make a theologian, not understanding, reading or speculating.'42

When we started making 'Selma,' the Black Lives Matter movement didn't exist. The parallels between Martin Luther King staging these marches, suffering police brutality... we weren't even aware when making the film that these sorts of things would start to happen again in 2015.

Luther could say, 'It is not a bad, but a very good sign if the opposite of what we pray for appears to happen. Just as it is not a good sign if our prayers eventuate in the fulfillment of all we ask for. If everything were to go the way I want it, I would end up in that kind of false security which is really an instrument of the divine judgment.

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

As attorney general, I don't get to pick and choose the laws I like and don't like.

But by 'faith' Luther did not mean 'belief' but an attitude of trust and self-abandonment: 'Faith does not require information, knowledge and certainty, but a free surrender and a joyful bet on [God's] unfelt, untried and unknown goodness.

The very names Kierkegaard, Luther, Calvin, Paul and Jeremiah suggest what Schleiermacher never possessed, a clear and direct apprehension of the truth that man is made to serve God and not God to serve man.

If I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart, and only then inquire after Augustine, St. Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and Schleiermacher.

The first man that was slain in the world was a saint, and he for religion. And as Luther said, Cain will kill Abel unto the end of the world.

That of Luther is most true, omnia præcepta sunt in primo tanquam capite—all the commands are wrapped up in the first. For, saith he, all sin is a contempt of God; and so we cannot break any other commands, but we break the first.

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!"

Was Luther crazy? Perhaps. But if he was, our prayer is that God would send to this earth an epidemic of such insanity that we too may taste of the righteousness that is by faith alone.

The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.

Demons live in many lands, but particularly in Prussia.

But they had imbibed, in the first fervor of the reformation, the spirit, as well as the principles of Luther.

Luther's revolution had, like all great revolutions, failed. But like all great revolutions, it had created a new world.

Luther was horrified. Partly this was because, for all his spiritual radicalism, he was deeply socially conservative. His instinct was to obey rightful authorities, to respect social hierarchies, and to preserve good order. For him, Christian freedom meant inner liberation, not political upheaval.

Luther disliked the idea of secret meetings, which he said reminded him of rats. Calvin had found a way of forming the rats into a choir and then drilling them to march.

The Reformation became notorious for two fat men. The first, Martin Luther, we have already met. The second, King Henry VIII of England.

Luther's fire caught because fuel had been quietly building up for some time. The principal fuel was desire for reform of the church.