Inspirational Quotes by Martin Luther
“Y es preciso saber que un príncipe, y máxime un príncipe nuevo, no puede observar todo aquello por lo que los hombres son considerados buenos, dado que, para conservar el Estado, a menudo necesita obrar contra la lealtad, contra la caridad, contra la humanidad, contra la religión. Por eso necesita tener un ánimo dispuesto a moverse según se lo exijan los vientos de la fortuna y las variaciones de las cosas y, como he dicho antes, no alejarse del bien, si puede, pero saber entrar en el mal si es necesario. (...) Trate, pues, el príncipe de ganar y conservar el Estado y los medios siempre serán juzgados honorables y alabados por todos, porque el vulgo se deja conquistar por la apariencia y por el resultado final de las cosas, y en el mundo no hay más que vulgo''.”
“1. No one can understand Vergil's Bucolics unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Vergil's Georgics, unless he has been a farmer for five years. 2. No one can understand Cicero's Letters (or so I teach), unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years. 3. Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles. Do not assail this divine Aeneid; nay, rather prostrate revere the ground that it treads. We are beggars: this is true.”
“Now circumcision was an external mark, by which God’s people were known in distinction from other nations; just as we see that every prince gives his people and army his standard and watchword, by which they are known among themselves and by which foreigners can tell, to what lord they belong. Thus God has never left his people without such a sign or watchword, by which it can outwardly be known in the world where his people are to be found. Jews are known by circumcision: that was their divine mark. Our mark is baptism and the body of Christ.”
“In his ministry to the sick Luther recommended physicians, barbers, and apothecaries. Resort to medicine is desirable, he said, and it is well that physicians and nurses do what they can. However, Luther went beyond most of these physicians in pointing to the mental and emotional origin of some physical ailments. “Our physical health depends in large measure on the thoughts of our minds. This is in accord with the saying, ‘Good cheer is half the battle.’”{18}”
“Thus the Scripture calls us holy, while we yet live on earth, if we believe. But the Papists have taken the name from us, and say, we are not to be holy; the saints in Heaven alone are holy. Thus we are compelled to reclaim the noble name. You must be holy, but you must also beware against imagining that you are holy through yourself or by your own merit, but only that you have God's word, that Heaven”
“He has come that they might reject their works; but this is a thing they cannot suffer, and they reject Him.”
“Those precious words, Holy and Spiritual, have been perverted for us through the greed of the preachers, in that they have denominated the state of priests and monks holy and spiritual, and have thus scandalously robbed us of these noble, precious words, as also of the word Church, since with them the Pope and Bishops are the Church, while they do according to their own pleasure whatever they choose, in virtue of the declaration,”
“...The Turk is the rod of the wrath of the Lord our God... ...resisting the Turks, whom he presented as a scourge intentionally sent by God to sinning Christians, and that resisting it would have been equivalent to resisting the will of God...”
“Church and State are both rent, by the tugging of the demonic and the Divine”
topics: church-and-state
“To be a Christian without praying is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
“Por ello las acciones que en un caso pueden poner diques a la fortuna y resultar virtuosas, en el otro pueden fracasar; por ello también el par virtud/fortuna tiene una acepción unipersonal e individual en el primer caso (el recogido en El príncipe) y otra colectiva y republicana en el segundo (el de los Discursos).”
“Moreover, men are less careful how they offend him who makes himself loved than him who makes himself feared. For love is held by the tie of obligation, which, because men are a sorry breed, is broken on every whisper of private interest; but fear is bound by the apprehension of punishment which never relaxes its grasp.”
“For I am ashamed of and annoyed by my exceedingly disgraceful lack of faith amid such a wealth of promises by which we have been overwhelmed and made drunk, when I consider and see that the saintly fathers had such great faith in promises not yet fulfilled.”
“And the human mind endures misfortunes of any kind more easily than prosperity and abundance, as the German proverb puts it: “Strong legs are needed to be able to endure good days.”
“Although the arms and kings of the world should serve the purpose of peace in the kingdom of Christ for the sake of teaching and propagating the Gospel, that kingdom should not be administered through laws. For laws do not make Christians. No, the Word and the sacraments — the Eucharist, Baptism, etc. — establish and build the kingdom of Christ.”
“But there is a common opinion among all authors in the church that the Antichrist, whom they take to be the viper, will come from the tribe of Dan; and this opinion has been received and approved by all as an important article of faith.”
“But grace has changed my nature for the better, to keep me from joining them and shedding innocent blood.”
“For if I believe the promise of God, I am certain that my life is pleasing to God and is superior to all the orders, since it makes a heavenly man, a conqueror of death, an heir of eternal life, and one who tramples the devil underfoot, as is stated in Ps. 91:13: “You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and serpent you will trample underfoot.” This is the strength and particular power of Christians.”
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Martin Luther changed the course of Western civilization by initiating the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesmen with his 95 Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms meeting in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the emperor.
Luther taught that salvation is a free gift of God and received only by grace through faith in Jesus as redeemer from sin, not from good works. His theology challenged the authority of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.
His translation of the Bible into the language of the people (instead of Latin) made it more accessible, causing a tremendous impact on the church and on German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation into English of the King James Bible. His hymns inspired the development of singing in churches. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant priests to marry.