Martin Luther Giving Quotations

The Lord commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else.

I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God. Music drives away the Devil and makes people joyful; they forget thereby all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. Next after theology, I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor.

A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.

Christianity can be summed up in the two terms faith and love...receiving from above [faith] and giving out below [love].

Let all the 'free-will' in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.

You may as well quit reading and hearing the Word of God, and give it to the devil, if you do not desire to live according to it.

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.

Next to theology I give music the highest place of honor.

True faith will no more fail to produce [good works] than the sun can cease to give light.

I would not give one moment of heaven for all the joy and riches of the world, even if it lasted for thousands and thousands of years.

God does not give grace freely in the sense that He will demand no satisfaction, but He gave Christ to be the satisfaction for us.

Great people and champions are special gifts of God, whom He gives and preserves; they do their work, and achieve great actions, not with vain imaginations, or cold and sleepy cogitations, but by motion of God.

The highest and most precious treasure we receive of God is, that we can speak, hear, see, etc.; but how few acknowledge these as God's special gifts, much less give God thanks for them.

Next to theology I give to music the highest place and honor. And we see how David and all the saints have wrought their godly thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.

People give ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus]...this fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy

He who receives a sacrament does not perform a good work; he receives a benefit. In the mass we give Christ nothing; we only receive from Him.

God is ready to give more quickly, and to give more than you ask; yea, he offers his treasures if we only take them. It is truly a great shame and a severe chastisement for us Christians that God should still upbraid us for our slothfulness in prayer, and that we fail to let such a rich and excellent promise incite us to pray.

If I could today become king or emperor, I would not give up my office as preacher.

How rich a God our God is! He gives enough, but we don't notice it. He gave the whole world to Adam, but this was nothing in Adam's eyes; he was concerned about one tree and had to ask why God had forbidden him to eat it.

Nothing on earth is so well-suited to make the sad merry, the merry sad, to give courage to the despairing, to make the proud humble, to lessen envy and hate, as music.

It is impossible for one man both to labor day and night to get a living, and at the same time give himself to the study of sacred learning as the preaching office requires.

When God contemplates some great work, He begins it by the hand of some poor, weak, human creature, to whom He afterwards gives aid.

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.

The confidence that God is mindful of the individual is of tremendous value in dealing with the disease of fear, for it gives us a sense of worth, of belonging, and of at homeness in the universe.

For what God gives I thank indeed; What He withholds I do not need

Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.

The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us somewhat to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never understand anything thereof; no, not although we diligently read and heard the same.

The two chief things are faith and love. Faith receives the good; love gives the good. Faith offers us God as our own; love gives us to our neighbor as his own.

World, death, devil, hell, away and leave me in peace! You have no hold on me. If you will not let me live, then I will die. But you won't succeed in that. Chop my head off, and it won't harm me. I have a God who will give me a new one.

As when my little son John offendeth: if then I should not whip him, but call him to the table unto me, and give him sugar and plums, thereby, I should make him worse, yea should quite spoil him.

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.