“Beside the staff of life,
taken and fashioned from the heavy earth,
beside our marriage, work, and war
the free man, too, will live and grow towards the sun.
Not the ripe fruit alone —
blossom is lovely, too.
Does blossom only serve the fruit,
or does fruit only serve the blossom —
who knows?
But both are given to us.”

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

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

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer 161
German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi 1906–1945

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