Quotes About Integrity

It's time now for something to be done. He who has the courage to act must know that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. But if he fails to act, he will be a traitor before his own conscience. —CLAUS SCHENK VON STAUFFENBERG

His opposition to self-indulgent emotionalism and "phraseology" was the same as ever; his opposition to the National Socialists and all they represented was the same as ever.

Do the right thing, seek the truth, defend the weak, live courageous lives.

He felt that what was especially missing from the life of Christians in Germany was the day-to-day reality of dying to self, of following Christ with every ounce of one's being in every moment, in every part of one's life.

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

It was an odious process whereby one wined and dined one's constituents and gave speeches. It was all many degrees more shameless than anything we complain of today, not least because one was quite literally expected to pay each elector two guineas as a bribe.

King George III himself, it must be pointed out, stood out as a rare and notable exception to the advanced moral decay of those around him. He was deeply sensitive to his symbolic position as the head of the country and sincerely wished to set an example for the subjects he ruled.

every Christian must be "fully human" by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some "spiritual" realm. To be an ethereal figure who merely talked about God, but somehow refused to get his hands dirty in the real world in which God had placed him, was bad theology. Through Christ, God had shown that he meant us to be in this world and to obey him with our actions in this world. So

291 The German Christians had convinced themselves that "evangelizing" Germany was worth any price, including eviscerating the gospel by preaching hatred against the Jews. But Bonhoeffer knew that twisting the truth to sell it more effectively was not confined to the German Christians. Members of the Confessing Church had also shaved the truth betimes.

Bonhoeffer "was a person about whom one had the feeling that he was completely whole," said one Finkenwalde ordinand, "a man who believes in what he thinks and does what he believes in.

twisting of the holiest and highest truth in the universe.

You can talk about right and wrong and good and bad all day long, but ultimately people need to see it. Seeing and studying the actual lives of people is simply the best way to communicate ideas about how to behave and how not to behave. We need heroes and role models.

Bonhoeffer openly thought things through and taught his students to do the same. They followed lines of reasoning to their logical conclusions and considered every angle to have a sense of absolute thoroughness, so that nothing depended on mere emotion.

We pretend we would have spoken out for the Jews in Bonhoeffer's day, or that we would have spoken against the slave trade in Wilberforce's day, but are we speaking out today on the issues that are no less important to God in our time? If not, we are deceiving ourselves.

The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue.

Never to speak about a brother in his absence. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions.

Karl Bonhoeffer taught his children to speak only when they had something to say. He did not tolerate sloppiness of expression any more than he tolerated self-pity or selfishness or boastful pride. His children loved and respected him in a way that made them eager to gain his approval; he hardly had to say anything to communicate his feelings on a subject. Often a cocked eyebrow was all it took.

what it was that made one virtuous, whether religion or simple cultural habit, or a

The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. So

Anyone on the side of truth, wherever it led, was a compatriot to be lauded.

Perhaps even more important in the Bonhoeffer family was acting upon what one said one believed. One must not only think clearly but must prove one's thoughts in action. If one was unprepared to live out what one claimed to believe, perhaps one didn't believe what one claimed after all!

The Bonhoeffers raised their children to do the right thing, so when they behaved selflessly and bravely, it was difficult to argue.

One cannot demand "the truth" at any cost, and for this girl to admit in front of the class that her father is a drunkard is to dishonor him. How one tells the truth depends on circumstances.