The refusal is genuine. It is Luther’s reply at the Diet of Worms on 18 April 1521, and Wikiquote’s sourced section gives this exact English from Karl Heim’s The Nature of Protestantism (1963), p. 78. The opening “Here I stand” is disputed on Wikiquote ↗, which says it is not in the transcripts or eyewitness accounts. It also is not part of that rendering, so the popular version joins two separate lines.
“Here I stand... I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience” Martin Luther, reply at the Diet of Worms, 18 April 1521 (modern English translation; the opening "Here I stand" is disputed and not in the record) · Verbatim: “I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.”
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Provenance
What Luther is recorded as saying
Occasion
Luther’s reply before Charles V at the Diet of Worms
Date
18 April 1521
Translation
Karl Heim, The Nature of Protestantism (1963), p. 78, as cited by Wikiquote. Also cited from Martin Brecht, Martin Luther, trans. James L. Schaaf, 1:460
Not in this rendering
“Here I stand” (disputed)
Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.
No “Here I stand”
In the standard 1521 report of the Diet, the closing German words read “Ich kan nicht anderst, hie[r] stehe ich, Gott helff mir, Amen”. There, “here I stand” comes last, after “I cannot do otherwise”, and not before the refusal to recant (Young, Lutheran Quarterly ↗).
Wikiquote ↗ lists the “I cannot and will not recant anything…” sentence in its sourced section, as translated in Heim’s The Nature of Protestantism (1963), p. 78. It lists “Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders” under Disputed, saying there is no indication of it in the Diet transcripts or eyewitness accounts.
Wikipedia’s Diet of Worms ↗ article quotes the same sentence, citing Martin Brecht’s Martin Luther (trans. James L. Schaaf, Fortress Press), 1:460. It gives “Here I stand” only “according to tradition”.
Elesha Coffman’s “Hier stehe ich!” in Christianity Today (2002) ↗ quotes Scott Hendrix: “The earliest printed version of Luther’s address added these words, which were not recorded on the spot.”
Samuel L. Young’s “How Luther Became the Mythical ‘Here I Stand’ Hero” ↗ traces the German reports and the English renderings, from Foxe’s “Hereupon I stand and rest” to the first “Here I stand” in Thomas Mall’s 1665 Sufferers Mirrour.
Luther’s 1521 words are long in the public domain, but this exact English wording comes from translations first published after 1931: Heim’s The Nature of Protestantism (1963), and also Brecht’s Martin Luther in Schaaf’s translation. Older public-domain translations word the sentence differently. The “Here I stand” fragment has no single source.
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Fact-check
What the popular version gets wrong
Luther really did refuse to recant at Worms, and he really did appeal to conscience. The popular quote adds a disputed opening and puts the parts in a new order.
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“Here I stand…”Later printed accounts and tradition Disputed
Wikiquote ↗ says there is no indication in the Diet transcripts or eyewitness accounts that Luther said it, and that most scholars now doubt it. It notes that Diarmaid MacCulloch traces the line to Georg Rörer. Hendrix, quoted in Christianity Today ↗, says the earliest printed version added the words, which “were not recorded on the spot.”
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Word orderThe modern stitched quote Reordered
In the standard 1521 report the German ending is “Ich kan nicht anderst, hie[r] stehe ich, Gott helff mir, Amen”. The disputed “here I stand” closes the speech after “I cannot do otherwise” and does not come before the refusal to recant (Young ↗).
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The English phrase “Here I stand”English translators and biographers Translation history
Foxe rendered the ending “Hereupon I stand and rest”. According to Young ↗, Thomas Mall’s 1665 Sufferers Mirrour was the first to translate it as “Here I stand”. Roland Bainton’s mid-twentieth-century biography Here I Stand made the line famous.
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“neither safe nor right”Different modern translators Wording varies
The English of the refusal is not fixed. Heiko Oberman’s version, quoted in Christianity Today ↗, reads “acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound.”
✓Luther refused to recant before the Diet of Worms on 18 April 1521. “I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience” is a modern translation of that recorded reply. “Here I stand” is a disputed addition that the record does not support (Wikiquote ↗).
Context
Why the line travels
Called to Worms to disown his books, Luther answered that his conscience was “captive to the Word of God” and that he would not recant. That refusal before the emperor became the defining image of the Reformation.
The punchier “Here I stand” came to stand for the whole scene. Young ↗ shows how English writers slowly turned it into a heroic slogan, and today it is often placed in front of the documented refusal as if Luther said the two together.
My conscience is captive to the Word of God.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1483–1546 · German theologian & Protestant reformer
Martin Luther was the Augustinian friar and Wittenberg professor whose challenge to the papacy started the Protestant Reformation. Summoned before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in April 1521 to recant his writings, he refused and appealed to Scripture and conscience. The scene became one of the founding stories of Protestant identity.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source and translation
Martin Luther, reply at the Diet of Worms, 18 April 1521. English: Karl Heim, The Nature of Protestantism (1963), 78 (as cited by Wikiquote); also Martin Brecht, Martin Luther, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–1993), 1:460. The opening “Here I stand” is not in these renderings and is disputed.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Here I stand... I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/here-i-stand-i-cannot-and-will-not-recant-anything-since-it/