Popular quotes about Conscience! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
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.
Khalil GibranConscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.
Madame de StaelCompulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience.
Pierre BayleCongratulations. You have met your conscience. In my experience, the world is divided between those who have one and those who don't. And the ones with one are divided into those who will act on their conscience and those who won't. Those who will are, I'm afraid, the smallest category. They will *jeito*. It's Brazilian Portuguese. It means to find a way to get something done, no matter what the obstacles.
Jean FerrisThe universal elements are integrity, vision, discipline, passion, governed by conscience. Conscience has been educated through studying and pondering the universal, timeless principles of all six major world religions.
Stephen CoveySin begins in thought, which is the intimation of conscience. So, if the conscience holds sin, then its thoughts shall be evil.
Mahmoud Mohammed TahaWe also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience.
Pope FrancisIf your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
Martin Luther King, Jr.A pivotal spiritual attribute is that of self-mastery-th e strength to place reason over appetite. Self-mastery builds a strong conscience. And your conscience determines your moral responses in difficult, tempting, and trying situations.
Russell M. Nelson[On disagreeing with her husband about his slave-holding:] I cannot give my conscience into the keeping of another human being or submit the actions dictated by my conscience to their will.
Fanny KembleA good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.
Seneca the YoungerThe man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty.
William Ralph IngeI came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
Leo RostenPatriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.
Leo TolstoyTo assert that it is possible to establish peace between men of different nations is simply to assert that man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two forces within the individual contribute to the development of his conscience and of his morality: reason and sensitivity.
Leon BourgeoisThere 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.
Mahatma GandhiLet it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.
John TylerWe did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
Patrick HenryThe New Age movement looks like a mixed bag. I see much in it that seems good: It's optimistic; it's enthusiastic; it has the capacity for belief. On the debit side, I think one needs to distinguish between belief and credulity. How deep does New Age go? Has it come to terms with radical evil? More, I am not sure how much social conscience there is in New Age thinking.
Huston SmithI have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.
Edmond RostandThey asked if I knew what 'conscientious objector' meant. I told them that when the white man asked me to go off somewhere and fight and maybe die to preserve the way the white man treated the black man in America, then my conscience made me object.
Malcolm XI have thought about this issue of abortion time and again. It is not an easy issue for most people. I came to believe over the years that a woman should be able to make this agonizing decision with her doctor and her family and her conscience, and that we should be very careful that we don't make that decision a crime except in the most extreme circumstances.
Dick DurbinIt became very important for me to stand up and design with a conscience for environment, you know? Just because you like clothes doesn't mean that you have to throw your principles out the window.
Maria CornejoConscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe
William ShakespeareScholars who become politicians are usually assigned the comic role of having to be the good conscience of state policy.
Friedrich NietzscheThe real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.
Edward KennedyConscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.
Jeremy CollierYet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray; he flattered only to ruin; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.
Edward GibbonOur greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas JeffersonVirtuosi have been long remarked to have little conscience in their favorite pursuits. A man will steal a rarity who would cut off his hand rather than take the money it is worth. Yet, in fact, the crime is the same.
HoraceWith a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
John F. KennedyThere is no question of defence. I have always acted in accordance with the dictates of my conscience. I have nothing with which to reproach myself.
Agatha Christie... we believe in the vocation of communion and participation of our people, who day to day awaken to their political conscience and express their desire for change and profound democratization of society. A change based on justice, built with love, and which will bring us the most anxiously desired fruits of peace.
Adolfo Perez EsquivelThose who have experienced the most, have suffered so much that they have ceased to hate. Hate is more for those with a slightly guilty conscience, and who by chewing on old hate in times of peace wish to demonstrate how great they were during the war.
Thor HeyerdahlMy first professional acting job was in 'Hair' during the Vietnam War. So I think I've always been drawn to projects with a social conscience.
Clarke PetersA society that is in its higher circles and middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of 'success' to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal. Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed.
C. Wright MillsPeople of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.
Desmond TutuI cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.
Lillian Hellman