HomeQuotesDietrich Bonhoeffer
Literature and scripture
There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.
Letters and Papers from Prison, "After Ten Years", 1943
Literature and scripture
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What this means, and why it matters to a father

Bonhoeffer wrote these words in a private note for his friends in the German resistance on the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power — January 1943, before his own arrest. He was describing what the previous decade had forced him to see: history looks completely different when you are on the losing side of it.

There is more to this one. The full context — the events behind the words, what the author was living through, and how it applies to the specific situations of fatherhood — is in the app under Deeper Understanding.

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Related themes

resiliencegriefwisdomidentity

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