conscience Quotes

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

“The Play’s the Thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”

“God, if he believed in one—his conscience, if he had one—were the sole judges to whom he was answerable.”

“A person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.”

“Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won’t learn their lessons or practise their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a bad heart or a bad conscience.”

“Securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”

“At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit’s idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him.”

The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.

“The same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

“Well . . . I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties . . . they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?”

“But I hope you will heed this: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”

“I focused on the fact that what God says is indeed best. It doesn’t matter if all the men in the world are against it. So seeing that God prefers his religion, seeing that God prefers a tender conscience, seeing that those who make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest, and that the poor man who loves Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world who hates him, I turned to Shame and said, ‘Depart, you who are an enemy to my salvation. Should I listen to your words which are contrary to my sovereign Lord?‘”

“But before I could say anything, Myers blurted out, ‘I lied. Everything I said at McMillian’s trial was a lie. I’ve lost a lot of sleep and have been in a lot of pain over this. I can’t be quiet any longer.‘”

“My daddy always told me to just do the best you knew how and tell the truth. He said there was nothin to set a man’s mind at ease like wakin up in the morning and not havin to decide who you were. And if you done somethin wrong just stand up and say you don’t it and say you’re sorry and get on with it. Dont haul stuff around with you.”

“Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulse—the tyrant in us.”

“Weedon Scott had set himself the task of redeeming White Fang -- or rather, of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fang was a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid.”

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

“Guilt is a hunter. My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child. It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.”

“Everything was filthy. Especially my conscience.”

“I will not be afflicted at men’s not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men.”

“Anybody can be charming if they don’t mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don’t have a conscience. I say them.”

“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain.”

“It’s fear that makes us lose our conscience. It’s also what transforms us into cowards.”

“No, I don’t think my conscience would let me support a strike like that. When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.”

“When his regard for himself is so high that his own self-respect demands he follow the path of courage and conscience that all benefit. ”

“Jason: Anything you or the children want in exile, let me know; I’ll gladly furnish it … Medea: The presents of the wicked are pure poison.”

“A biological conscience is better than no conscience at all”

“Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith.”

“Well, you may get off on being a beautiful stereotype, regardless of the social consequences, but my conscience won’t allow it.”

“Artemis paused, his gaze tugged momentarily upstairs to the converted loft. Perhaps, he thought. Do I really need all this gold? And was his conscience not needling him, leaching some of the sweetness from his victory? He shook himself. Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. No emotion.”

“I looked into her eyes, and saw my own staring back, the same peculiar shade, pale grey, flecked with yellow, rimmed with black. Now I knew the nature of her debt. It had weighed on her conscience for fourteen years. I was looking into the eyes of mother and I knew that I would never see her again.”

“You misunderstand my intentions, Jin. I did not come to punish you. I came to serve as your conscience—as a signpost to your soul.”

“Jamie was quiet for a minute, then he said, ‘We probably have no conscience. I think we ought to be homesick. Do you think Mom and Dad raised us wrong? They’re not very mean, you know; don’t you think that should make us miss them?’ ”

“But because of this the mosquito has a guilty conscience. To this day she goes about whining in people’s ears. ‘Zeee! Is everyone still angry at me?’ When she does that, she gets an honest answer.”

“The first notes were low and murmuring. Again they made Griselda think of little rippling brooks in summer, and now and then there a sort of hum as of insects buzzing in the warm sunshine near. This humming gradually increased, till at last Griselda was conscience of nothing more - everything seemed to be humming, herself to, till at last she fell asleep.”

“Oh, I’ve always known I had to be your conscience and your guts.”

If they would serve their fellow-men, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement!

Were I an atheist,—a man devoid of conscience,—a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts,—I might have found peace, long ere now.

If I didn’t care about doing right, and didn’t feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally.

It is a bad sign; a quiet conscience does not occasion such paleness in the cheeks, and such fever in the hands of a man.

The dim light, the profound silence, and the gloomy thoughts inspired by the hour, and still more by her own conscience, all combined to produce a sensation of fear; the poisoner was terrified at the contemplation of her own work.

“An election is a very serious thing; at least it ought to be, and every man ought to vote according to his conscience, and let his neighbor do the same.”

You may think what you like, but I desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience.

“Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in vice.”