Strangely enough, it is godlessness itself that becomes most intolerant as soon as it has won the right to show itself openly and brazenly.

— Jeremias Gotthelf (1797–1854), Pfarrer und Schriftsteller

Topics: Doubt & Hard Questions, Ethical Questions

Jeremias Gotthelf

Jeremias Gotthelf (bürgerlich Albert Bitzius, 1797–1854) war ein Schweizer reformierter Pfarrer und Schriftsteller, der ab 1832 in Lützelflüh im Emmental wirkte. Er erlangte mit realistischen Erzählungen wie „Die schwarze Spinne“ und seinem sozialethischen Einsatz gegen gesellschaftliche Missstände Bekanntheit, vertrat jedoch ein streng hierarchisches Gesellschaftsbild und trug scharfe politische Konflikte aus. Heutigen Bibellesern führt sein Werk die Bewährung von Glauben, persönlicher Integrität und praktischer Nächstenliebe im alltäglichen Leben vor Augen.

All quotes by Jeremias Gotthelf (21)

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The strongest faith isn't a faith that never doubts. Rather, it's a faith that grows through doubts.

Craig Groeschel

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because, by it, I see everything else.

C.S. Lewis

Do you see the moon standing there? It's only half visible, and yet it's round and lovely! So it is with many things that we lightly laugh about, because our eyes cannot see them.

Matthias Claudius

The grip of our faith by which we hold on to the Lord may loosen. But the One in whom we believe holds us with his grip.

Helmut Thielicke

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

C.S. Lewis

Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.

C.S. Lewis

Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.

Flannery O'Connor

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

William Shakespeare

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