Francis Schaeffer Quotes

If you want young people to take right and wrong seriously, you must put them in the presence of people who take right and wrong seriously.

There’s nothing more important than people’s conscience and there’s nothing that needs more protection.

Basic moral values must therefore first be internalized in the hearts and minds of its people before we can hope to enforce legislation reflecting these values

The more you talk about - and live by - your principles, the harder it will be for others to treat you in a morally ambiguous manner.

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.

Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right. That is the only way to deserve and to win the confidence of our great people in these days of trouble.

The righteous man takes his life in his hand whenever he utters the truth.

He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is afraid of his enemy, but that he thinks little of God.

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

Only the difference between truth and lies, courage and cowardice.

Honor was never taking the easy way when it was also the wrong one. Never telling a falsehood unless the truth was painful and unnecessary, or a lie was necessary to save others. Never manipulating the truth to serve only yourself. Protecting the weak and helpless; standing fast even when fear made you weak. Keeping your word.

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

Integrity is the courage and self-discipline to cooperate and initiate according to the Divine, which you know in your heart as Truth.

Do well and right and let the world sink.

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

Integrity is never painless.

A mind that is conscious of its integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.

We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.

Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character; it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.

My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth.

A righteous man hates lying, But a wicked man is loathsome and comes to shame.

The public wants elected officials who have character. The public wants elected officials who are willing to stand up and say things, even if they don't agree with them.

Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?

The weakling and the coward cannot be saved by honesty alone; but without honesty the brave and able man is merely a civic wild beast who should be hunted down by every lover of righteousness. No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community.