Quotes from Martin Luther

If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy.

How foolish it was of Christ to purchase for us at the price of his shed blood the Spirit we did not need, in order that we might be given a facility in keeping the commandments, who we already have one by nature.

Each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians.

At an earlier time there was no pleasure in the law for me. But now I find that the law is good and tasty, that it has been given to me so that I might live, and now I find my pleasure in it. Earlier, it told me what I ought to do. Now I begin to adapt myself to it. And for this I worship, praise, and serve God

In all other matters I will yield to any man whatsoever; but I have neither the power nor the will to deny the Word of God.

The Church must run the risk of dilution rather than leave the state to the cold light of reason, unwarmed by tenderness.

what more scoundrelly trick could you have played on us?

Daily there have to be many troubles and trials in every house, city, and country. No station in life is free of suffering and pain, both from your own, like your wife or children or household help or subjects, and from the outside, from your neighbors and all sorts of accidental trouble.

I will keep an eye on Diatribe, with her big talk and heroic gestures, to see with what force she will bring down my Achilles, when hitherto she has never managed to hit a common soldier, not even a Thersites, but she has shot her miserable self to pieces with her own weapons.

a quite novel kind of grammar and logic, according to which what is something is nothing

no one would be happier than Luther to be commended by the testimony of the time that he had been neither slack nor deceitful in maintaining the course of truth, but had shown quite enough and even too much vehemence.

Jerome has merited hell rather than heaven for it-so little would I dare to recognize or call him a saint.

Therefore nothing were better for us than soon to be conveyed to the last dance, and covered with shovels.

My father and mother did not think they should have brought a superintendent into the world.

Now, you can stand it when your body emits a stench before you realize it, or when it festers and becomes pussy and completely pollutes your skin. You make allowances for all this. In fact, this only increases your concern and love for your body; you wait on it and wash it, and you endure and help in every way you can. Why not do the same with the spouse whom God has given you, who is an even greater treasure and whom you have even more reason to love?

There are only two days on my calendar, today and THAT DAY!

You see, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon or Sodom, and quite, as I believe, of a lost, desperate and hopeless impiety.

You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.

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.

Everything that is done in the world is done by hope. No merchant or tradesman would set himself to work if he did not hope to reap benefit thereby.

Do not let your thoughts take flight, flutter, and climb. Simply cleave and cling to Christ. It is imperative to remain solely with the Person of Christ. If you have that, you have all; but if you lose that, you have lost all.

The world bears the Gospel a grudge because the Gospel condemns the religious wisdom of the world.

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.

They mistakenly assume that their good works can save them. Just make sure that you are born again. Because if you are not, your good works are worthless.