A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the deep commitment lovers have for each other and challenges us to extend that same level of devotion and sacrifice to our enemies.
In this quote, Dietrich Bonhoeffer emphasizes the profound sacrifices that lovers are often willing to make for one another, suggesting that if we can show such dedication to those we hold dear, we should also be prepared to offer similar sacrifices for our enemies. This idea serves as a call to elevate our moral and ethical standards by portraying a love that transcends personal connection, advocating for compassion and selflessness even in the face of conflict.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech, one might use this quote to emphasize the power of love and commitment.
More from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
All quotes βIn normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then letβs see something to prove it.
It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
Similar quotes
Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World.
When I am lonely for boys itβs their bodies I miss. I study their hands lifting the cigarettes in the darkness of the movie theaters, the slope of a shoulder, the angle of a hip. Looking at them sideways, I examine them in different lights. My love for them is visual: that is the part of them I would like to possess. Donβt move, I think. Stay like that, let me have that.
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor -- spending and being spent -- to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others -- and not just their own friends -- in whatever way there seems need.
Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.
Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day.
You have made me ashamed of the wasted years. You have made me acknowledge that no darkness has ever been deep enough to extinguish my personal knowledge of love. And all around me in this world I see evidence of love. I see love. I see it in the human struggle. I see its undeniable penetration in all that humans have accomplished in their poetry, their painting, their music, their love of one another and refusal to accept suffering as their lot.