Quotes about Conscience
Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil--and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If we would answer the question of the existence of the Evil then we would not be sinners, we could make something else responsible.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God—the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience. —
— Dietrich von Hildebrand
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
— Jonathan Edwards
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Of two evils, choose neither.
— Charles Spurgeon
A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him.
— Albert Schweitzer
Suppose for example, that he lacks outward comforts, good cheer and feasting, a good conscience in a continual feast; so he can make up the lack of a feast by the peace that he has in his own conscience. If he lacks melody in the world, he has a bird within him that sings the most melodious songs in the world, and the most delightful. And then does he lack honor? He has his own conscience witnessing for him, that is as a thousand witnesses.
— Jeremiah Burroughs
Being against evil doesn't make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide... I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting.
— Ernest Hemingway
I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.
— Ernest Hemingway