Martin Luther

1483–1546 · German theologian & leader of the Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther was a German Augustinian friar who became professor of theology at Wittenberg; his 1517 protest against indulgences split Western Christianity and set off the Reformation. He preached and wrote at enormous volume and translated the Bible into German, and it is in his sermons on the Gospel of John, delivered in 1537–38, that the prayer-as-heartbeat image appears. He is a wholly different person from Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), the American civil-rights leader born four centuries later.

Traced to source

4 quotes we’ve traced to Martin Luther

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”

Disputed

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope”

Disputed

“If you want to know what the Lord God thinks of money, just look at those to whom he gives it”

Disputed

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing”

Disputed

Did they really say it?

Thought Martin Luther said something else?

Type a quote you think Martin Luther said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.