Quotes about Conscience

Another thing he speaks of as matter of comfort is, that as he had approved himself to his own conscience, so he had also to the consciences of his hearers, the Corinthians, whom he now wrote to, and that they should approve of him at the day of judgment. 3.

7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

For the very notion of hardness of heart implies moral inability.

Such people neither steal, nor murder, nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. But... they must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep their private blamelessness clean from the stains of responsible action in the world. In all that they do, what they fail to do will not let them rest. They will either be destroyed by this unrest, or they will become the most hypocritical of all Pharisees.

By the time Wilberforce experienced his "Great Change," all of the social problems that would plague eighteenth-century Britain had come to full flower, having been unchecked by the social conscience of genuine Christian faith for nearly a hundred years.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.

In one conversation that September in Geneva, Visser 't Hooft asked Bonhoeffer what he prayed for. "If you want to know the truth," Bonhoeffer replied, "I pray for the defeat of my nation. For I believe that is the only way to pay for all the suffering which my country has caused in the world.

But so successful would Wilberforce and these other Christians be at bringing a concern for the poor and a social conscience into the society at large that by the next century, during the Victorian era, this attitude would become culturally mainstream.

They understood that freedom was not merely the freedom to be left alone; it was the freedom to do what was right.

Some wondered whether he was just kicking against the goads, but when someone asked Bonhoeffer whether he shouldn't join the German Christians in order to work against them from within, he answered that he couldn't. 'If you board the wrong train,' he said, 'it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.

In the old Republican days the subject of slavery and of the saving of the Union made appeals to the consciences and liberty-loving instincts of the people. These later years have been full of talk about commerce and dinner pails, but I feel sure that the American conscience and the American love of liberty have not been smothered. They will break through this crust of sordidness and realize that those only keep their liberties who accord liberty to others.

I didn't bother to ask him why he didn't wait for someone from the American Legation, for I knew the reason. French methods are a little old-fashioned by our cold standards: they believe in the conscience, the sense of guilt, a criminal should be confronted with his crime, for he may break down and betray himself. I told myself again I was innocent