A Quote by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.

Dietrich von Hildebrand

Quote Topics

Against Beggar Better Compromises Conscience Forced Freedom Than

Quote Author

Dietrich von Hildebrand
German - Philosopher
October 12, 1889 - January 26, 1977

No one should be forced to violate one's conscience, nor should anyone be forced out of service of the common good because there are some things their conscience tells them they cannot do.

Donald Wuerl

Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.

Robert Jordan

It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.

Pope John Paul II

Conscience has nothing to do as lawgiver or judge; but is a witness against me if I do wrong, and which approves if I do right. To act against conscience is to act against reason and God's Law.

Artur Phleps

I shall oppose all slavery extension and all increase of slave representation in all places, at all times, under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all supposed limitations of great interests, against all combinations, against all compromises.

Daniel Webster

What I cannot live with may not bother another man's conscience. The result is that conscience will stand against conscience.

Hannah Arendt

Afghans long ago resigned themselves to this sort of thing. Compromises must be made. Deals with the devil are better than ceaseless butchery. In the exigencies of post-conflict bygones, against the threat of collapse into more terrible bloodletting, the ugliness of realpolitik is the lesser evil.

Terry Glavin

Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.

Jean de La Fontaine

Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children. They go on forcing the child.

Rajneesh

...a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion.

Donald Miller

My mother once said, "A beggar must always give to another beggar that's worse off than he is." That has always stuck with me.

Kirk Douglas

Let Christians all understand that conscience is between themselves and God alone. They are not at liberty to impose even their freedom of conscience upon another; but by the laws of the kingdom of Christ, they are obliged even to refrain at times from exercising their own freedom, out of consideration for others.

Ellet J. Waggoner

The Hungarians, by nature, are not extreme. They become more extreme only when they are forced to fight for their freedom, as was in the case in the uprising against the communists in 1956 or the revolution against the Austrian Empire. They will not turn extreme in the name of despotism.

Viktor Orban

All the evils of France have been produced less by the perversity of the wicked and the violence of fools than by the hesitation of the weak, the compromises of conscience, and the tardiness of patriotism. Let every deputy, every Frenchman show what he feels, what he thinks, and we are saved!