Conscience Quotes

The bite of conscience, like the bite of a dog into a stone, is a stupidity.

The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.

Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.

Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion or politics... The things that will destroy us are: politics without principles, pleasures without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality.

You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.

It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolizethe whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

E'er you remark another's sin, bid your own conscience look within.

Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.

Conscience is a blushing, shamefaced spirit than mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles.

There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

The only guide to a man's conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.

Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

We easily forget crimes that are known to none but ourselves.

Guiltiness will speak, though tongues were out of use

But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow.

Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.

Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone might be looking. Hear and you forget, see and you remember, do and you understand.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds their blame.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

The color of the king doth come and go,Between his purpose and his conscience,Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.

The conscience is the sacred haven of the liberty of man.

Modesty is the conscience of the body.

Is your heart right? If your heart isn't right, fix it up today.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.

When we oppose the hidden conscience, it does us hurt. When we betray it, it judges us.

A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.

The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.

Deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, "There is something not right," no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or moral code.

In all the ages, three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been conscience money.

Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,--shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind.

A wicked conscience mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts.

I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better, nor more agreeably than having a clear conscience.

The bite of conscience is indecent.

Only the heart without a stain knows ease.

The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' And Vanity comes along and asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But Conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'

Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.

Man was destined for society. His morality therefore was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality... The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.

No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience, torpid through virtuous inaction, are more to me than corner lots and praise.

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise.

If we train our conscience, it kisses us while it hurts

Everyone has his own conscience,and there should be no rules abouthow a conscience should function.

MORAL LAW, Evidence of.- Man has been subjected by his Creator to the moral law, of which his feelings, or conscience as it is sometimes called, are the evidence with which his Creator has furnished him. ... The moral duties which exist between individual and individual in a state of nature, accompany them into a state of society ... their Maker not having released them from those duties on their forming themselves into a nation.

Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.

Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him.

Is there conscience in the Kremlin? Do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for?... No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.