“No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him.”

Source: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 85.
Context: "If any want to become my followers," Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him. … "If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves … and take up their cross."

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him." by Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer 161
German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi 1906–1945

Related quotes

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo

“One can follow any religion, one can follow any practice or path, but one must be humane.”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

The Teachings of Babaji, 22 January 1983
Humanity

Benito Mussolini photo

“I shall defend this pact with all my strength, and if Fascism does not follow me in collaboration with the Socialists, at least no one can force me to follow Fascism.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in Italy: A Modern History, Denis Mack Smith, University of Michigan Press (1959) p. 352, Pact of Pacification, 1921
1920s

Ayn Rand photo

“If one says 'Red' and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Albers, quoted by Patricia Sloane (1989) in The visual nature of color, p. 1

David D. Levine photo

“How quickly expectations can change one’s behavior, she thought.”

Source: Arabella of Mars (2016), Chapter 16, “Passenger” (p. 231)

Ramakrishna photo
Gustav Stresemann photo

“It is the policy of force which finally will always triumph. But when one has not got the force, one can also combat by the idea.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech in Berlin (29 November 1924), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 330
1920s

Kabir photo

“A drop
Melting into the sea,
Everyone can see.
But the sea
Absorped
In a drop —
A rare one
can follow!”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Azfar Hussain translations

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“He was extremely important to his contemporaries, who wanted nothing more than to see in his the Expected One; they wanted almost to press it upon him and and to force him into the role - but that he then refuses to be that!”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 60

Related topics