Rousas John Rushdoony Quotes

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.

If anyone has a conscience it's generally a guilty one.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but guilt is simply God's way of letting you know that you're having too good a time.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

All a man can betray is his conscience.

He [William Gladstone] made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.

Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.

A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to.

Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience?

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

As much wrong as I did in life and as many people as I hurt, I can say that God never stopped talking to me. I just stopped listening.

Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

Now, Friends, deal plainly with yourselves, and let the eternal Light search you, and try you, for the good of your souls. For this will deal plainly with you. It will rip you up, and lay you open, and make all manifest which lodges in you; the secret subtlety of the enemy of your souls, this eternal searcher and trier will make manifest. Therefore all to this come, and by this be searched, and judged, and led and guided. For to this you must stand or fall.

We compromise ourselves the day we are born. If we are looking for the original sin, there it is- our incapacity to live honestly with ourselves because we are human, because we are shackled by custom, by obligations and we accept compromise only in the light of our conscience, answerable as we are only to ourselves.

The Holy Scripture is like a diamond: in the dark it is like a piece of glass, but as soon as the light strikes it the water begins to sparkle, and the scintillation of life greets us.

Guilt agonizes over trifles, ignores habitual wrongdoing.

We did what our people do all the time, we told ourselves something we did was right and we found a way to justify it, even though we knew it was wrong.

Every one of us ... knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys.

The most enlightened people in the world embrace their full potential of light and dark. When you're with people who recognize and own their negative qualities, you never feel judged by them. It's only when people see good and bad, right and wrong, as qualities outside themselves that judgments occur.

I'll not meddle with it; it is a dangerous thing; it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbor's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing, shame -faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles; it made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found; it beggars any man that keeps it; it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters deliver us to laws; they send us bound to rules of reason, holy messengers, pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, bibles laid open, millions of surprises, blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, the sound of glory ringing in our ears: without, our shame; within, our consciences; angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array one cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

God is the author of the Bible, and only the truth it contains will lead people to true happiness.