Francis Schaeffer Quotes

Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence.

God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds as we think things out in his presence.

It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace.

There is no monster more destructive than the inventive mind that has outstripped philosophy.

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.

One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.

Television captures the mind but does not liberate it. A good book at once stimulates and frees the mind.

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads.

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.

Faith never requires us to crucify our minds or deny our senses.

Everybody has a nightmare, and everybody apparently has falling dreams, and everybody has the drowning dream, and everybody has certain kinds of sexual manifestation dreams, as well as our stress dreams; I didn't study for the algebra test, I didn't study for my driving test, you know, all those dreams. I still have those dreams, and it's just such an interesting thing that our mind can turn against us, our own mind, you know we all have.

The God to whom depth in philosophy bring back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them

The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind

The theologians also should not be irritated. For if they find that this opinion is false, then they would be free to condemn it; and if they discover that it is true, they ought to thank those who have opened the way to finding the true sense of the Scriptures and who have prevented them from falling into the grave scandal of condemning a true proposition.

And thoughts of no other man but you could possibly get through the picket lines to enter into my mind.

There is nothing more Islamic than critical thinking.

Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind.

We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time they are not remembered; he may, therefore, justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear... Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.

I discovered that Christianity does have the resources to meet the challenges posed by competing worldviews after all.

I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.

The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on it divine inspiration.

Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.