Quotes About Action

It is not that God is the spectator and sharer of our present life, howsoever important that is; but rather that we are the reverent listeners and participants in God's action in the sacred story, the history of the Christ on earth.

Do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment. Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living. God's command is enough and your faith in him to sustain you. Then at last freedom will welcome your spirit amid great rejoicing.

Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.

To deal with the word of Jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word...That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ's, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it.

In short, it is much easier to see a thing through from the point of view of abstract principle than from that of concrete responsibility.

The task is not to turn the world upside down but in a given place to do what, from the perspecive of reality, is necessary objectively and to really carry it out.

Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it.

Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus.

Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking questions; for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth.

Come now, solemnest feast on the road to eternal freedom, Death, and destroy those fetters that bow, those walls that imprison this our transient life, these souls that linger in darkness, so that at last we see what is here withheld from our vision. Long did we seek you, freedom, in discipline, action and suffering. Now that we die, in the face of God himself we behold you.

Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbour or not. We must get into action and obey – we must behave like a neighbour to him.

The attempt to understand reality apart from that action of God in and upon reality means living in anabstraction; it means failing to live in reality and vacillating between the extremes of a servile attitude toward the status quo and a protest in principle against it. Only God's becoming human makes possible an action that is genuinely in accord with reality. The world remains world. But it only does so because God has taken care of it and declared it to be under God's rule.

Gehorsam folgt blind, Freiheit hat offene Augen. Gehorsam handelt ohne zu fragen, Freiheit fragt nach dem Sinn. Gehorsam hat gebundene Hände, Freiheit ist schöpferisch.

To be silent does not mean to be inactive; rather it means to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively and be ready to obey.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditating on the Word

But to procrastinate and prevaricate simply because you're afraid of erring, when others — I mean our brethren in Germany — must make infinitely more difficult decisions every day, seems to me almost to run counter to love. To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love." (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, 218)

To be silent does not mean to be inactive; rather it means to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively and be ready to obey.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditating on the

Who comes to the light? "Those who do what is true" (John 3:21)! What does this mean? Truth is supposed to happen; it is not only to be thought or willed, but to be done. Truth arises through action that is the opposite of pretense and darkness, which give rise to evil.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This saying, which is found in a broad variety of lands, does not arise from the brash worldly wisdom of an incorrigible. It instead reveals deep Christian insight.

If we want to participate in this Advent and Christmas event, we cannot simply sit there like spectators in a theater and enjoy all the friendly pictures. Rather, we must join in the action that is taking place and be drawn into this reversal of all things ourselves. Here we too must act on the stage, for here the spectator is always a person acting in the drama. We cannot remove ourselves from the action.

A change has come indeed. Your hands, so strong and active, are bound; in helplessness now you see your action is ended; you sigh in relief, your cause committing to stronger hands; so now you may rest contented. Only for one blissful moment could you draw near to touch freedom; then, that it might be perfected in glory, you gave it to God.

It does not matter what others do, but what we do. Do that which is good, without fear, and without limit or reserve. What right have we to blame the government when we do not that which is good ourselves? How can we pass judgment on others when we invite the same condemnation on ourselves? If you want to be fearless, do good.

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.