"it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich"

"In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich."

     Dietrich Bonhoeffer, letter of 13 September 1943 to his parents Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, Letters and papers from prison:  an abridged edition, new & greatly enlarged ed., ed. Eberhard Bethge & trans. Reginald Fuller, Frank Clarke, et al., as rev. John Bowden (New York:  Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1971), 109.

"In normal life one is often not at all aware that we always receive infinitely more than we give, and that gratitude is what enriches life [(Dankbarkeit macht das Leben erst reich)].  One easily overestimates the importance of one's own acts and deeds, compared with what we become only through other people."

     Dietrich Bonhoeffer, letter of 13 September 1943 to his parents Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, Letters and papers from prison (Widerstand und Ergebung:  Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft), trans. , Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 8 (Fortress Press), 154 (2/57).