Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in After Ten Years. --Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (SCM Press, 1953):
"Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon time we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment and suffering. Time lost is time we have not filled, time left empty." p.13
"But just as the capacity to forget is a gift of grace, so memory, the recalling of the lessons we have learnt, is an essential element in responsible living."
p. 13
"Who stands his ground? Only the man whose ultimate criterion is not in his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these things when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and exclusive allegiance to God. The responsible man seeks to make his whole life a response to the question and call of God."
p. 16
"Christ avoided suffering until his hour had come, but when it did come he seized it with both hands as a free man and mastered it." p. 24
"We...are instruments in the hand of the Lord of history." p. 24
"It is infinitely easier to suffer in obedience to a human command than to accept suffering as free, responsible men. It is infinitely easier to suffer with others than to suffer alone. It is infinitely easier to suffer as public heroes than to suffer apart and in ignominy. It is infinitely easier to suffer physical death than to endure spiritual suffering. Christ suffered as a free man alone, apart and in ignominy, in body and in spirit, and since that day many Christians have suffered with him." p. 24
