In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world are widely known and influential. He was also known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, for which he spent time in a concentration camp and was eventually hanged.