Martin Luther
The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. This, of course, is a huge burden full of great cares and toils. But you have been created by God to be a husband or a wife and that you may learn to bear these troubles.Collection: Love
Look to it that you do not try to do all of it, do not try to do too much, lest your spirit grow weary. Besides, a good prayer mustn't be too long. Do not draw it out. Prayer ought to be frequent and fervent.Collection: Prayer
If the devil were wise enough and would stand by in silence and let the gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning.Collection: Wise
Thus every matter, if it is to be done well, calls for the attention of the whole person.Collection: Education
But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.Collection: Names
But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf.Collection: Tree
Merit is a work for the sake of which Christ gives rewards. But no such work is to be found, for Christ gives by promise. Just as if a prince should say to me, "Come to me in my castle, and I will give you a hundred florins." I do a work, certainly, in going to the castle, but the gift is not given me as the reward of my work in going, but because the prince promised it to me.Collection: Giving
Yes, would to God that I could persuade the rich and the mighty that they would permit the whole Bible to be painted on houses, on the inside and the outside, so that all can see it. That would be a Christian work... If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes? This is especially true since the heart is more important than the eyes, and should be less stained by sin because it is the true abode and dwelling place of God.Collection: Christian
Our faith is an astounding thing-astounding that I should believe him to be the Son of God who is suspended on the cross, whom I have never seen, with whom I have never become acquainted.Collection: Believe
Though we be active in the battle, if we are not fighting where the battle is the hottest, we are traitors to the cause.Collection: Fighting
I do not deny that medicine is a gift of God, nor do I refuse to acknowledge science in the skill of many physicians; but, take the best of them, how far are they from perfection? A sound regimen produces excellent effects. When I feel indisposed, by observing a strict diet and going to bed early, I generally manage to get round again, that is, if I can keep my mind tolerably at rest. I have no objection to the doctors acting upon certain theories, but, at the same time, they must not expect us to be the slaves of their fancies.Collection: Healing
Prayer is a powerful thing; for God has bound and tied himself thereunto.Collection: Prayer
They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did... If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs.Collection: Dog
In human affairs we accomplish everything through prayer. What has been properly arranged we keep in order, what has gone amiss we change and improve, what cannot be changed and improved we bear, overcoming all the trouble and sustaining all the good by prayer. Against force there is no help but prayer alone.Collection: Christian
God freely forgives us on account of Christnot on account of our works, contrition, confession, or satisfactions.Collection: Forgiving
Take a look at your own heart, and you will soon find out what has stuck to it and where your treasure is. It is easy to determine whether hearing the Word of God, living according to it, and achieving such a life gives you as much enjoyment and calls forth as much diligence from you as does accumulating and saving money and property.Collection: Heart
Christ is the master; the Scriptures are only the servant.Collection: Scripture
The devil should not be allowed to keep all the best tunes for himself.Collection: Devil
Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and the stars have been worshiped. Shall we then pluck them out of the sky? ...see how much he [God] has been able to accomplish through me, though I did no more than pray and preach. The Word did it all. Had I wished I might have started a conflagration at Worms. But while I sat still and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.Collection: Stars
But Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all (which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected) he hath raised up a sect of such as teach that the Ten Commandments ought to be taken out of the church, and that men should not be terrified with the law, but gently exerted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.Collection: Men
Faith is a free surrenderand a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.Collection: Wagers
God is a blank sheet upon which nothing is found but what you yourself have written.Collection: God
A person whodoes not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.Collection: Music
The Holy Ghost has called me by the gospel and illuminated me with his gifts and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith.Collection: Spirit
To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.Collection: Heart
Faith is permitting ourselves to be seized by the things that we do not see.Collection: Faith
Godly people are waiting for the Lord; therefore they live, therefore they are saved, therefore they receive what has been promised.Collection: Godly
Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason.Collection: Christian
Poverty hath slain a thousand, but riches have slain ten thousand. They are very uncertain, they promise that which they cannot perform, neither can they afford a contented mind.Collection: Promise
Let him who wants a true church cling to the Word by which everything is upheld.Collection: Christian
In the bonds of Death He lay Who for our offence was slain; But the Lord is risen to-day, Christ hath brought us life again, Wherefore let us all rejoice, Singing loud, with cheerful voice, Hallelujah!Collection: Easter
Rough, boisterous, stormy and altogether warlike, I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils.Collection: Fighting
We should die relying on grace aloneCollection: Grace
The Holy Ghost must here be our only master and tutor.Collection: Ghost
Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.Collection: Christian
A lie is like a snow-ball; the longer it is rolled, the larger it is.Collection: Lying
Our loving God wills that we eat, drink and be merry.Collection: Drink
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing: our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.Collection: Failing
I have so much to do today that I must set apart more time than usual to pray.Collection: Usual
Of all deadly sins, this is the most deadly, namely, that any one should think he is not guilty of a damnable and deadly sin before God.Collection: Thinking
Exhort your household to learn [the Ten Commandments] word for word, that they should obey God…For if you teach and urge your families things will go forward.Collection: Should
The winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits. Hark! how the Devil is puffing and blowing.Collection: Religious
Let us not lose the Bible, but with diligence, in fear and invocation of God, read and preach it. While that remains and flourishes, all prospers with the state; 'tis head and empress of all arts and faculties. Let but divinity fall, and I would not give a straw for the rest.Collection: Art
The Devil, too, sometimes steals human children; it is not infrequent for him to carry away infants within the first six weeks after birth, and to substitute in their place imps.Collection: Religious
The Devil, it is true, is not exactly a doctor who has taken degrees, but he is very learned, very expert for all that. He has not been carrying on his business during thousands of years for nothing.Collection: Religious
Isaiah calls the Church barren because her children are born without effort by the Word of faith through the Spirit of God. It is a matter of birth, not of exertion.Collection: Children
The Devil...clutched hold of the miserable young man...and flew off with him through the ceiling, since which time nothing has been heard of him.Collection: Religious