Conscience Quotes
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Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.
John Stuart Mill
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One day Anton Rieder, my old crush from high school, sat down next to me. He had been fatherless since we were kids. He knew the feeling—the loss of direction, the insecurity, the premature aging. “You are still beautiful,” he said. “And you were always gallant.” “I’ve enrolled at the Consular Academy. I’m going there not because I am so eager to be a diplomat, but because they have given me a scholarship.” “But it will be wonderful for you, Anton. You will be able to travel, maybe even go to England or America.” “Come with me.” “What?” “I know you go with Pepi Rosenfeld, but believe me, he’s too smart for his own good—his brains will always get in the way of his conscience. He’s not fine enough for you. I have always been in love with you; you know that. Leave him and come with me. I have nothing. Now your father is dead, and you have nothing. We’ll be perfect together.” He reached across the library table and took my hand. He was so handsome, so earnest. For a moment, I thought: “Maybe. Why not?” And then of course all the reasons why not spilled onto the long oak table, and Anton could not fail to see them there; and like a wise young diplomat, he rose and kissed my hand and took his leave.
Edith Hahn Beer
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Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience.
And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life because He alone gives it . . .
Mahatma Gandhi
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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.
Mahatma Gandhi
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Belshazzar had a letter,-- He never had but one; Belshazzar's correspondence Concluded and begun In that immortal copy The conscience of us all Can read without its glasses On revelation's wall.
Emily Dickinson
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In order to be true to one's conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A disciplined conscience is a man's best friend. It may not be his most amiable, but it is his most faithful monitor.
Austin Phelps
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We 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.
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In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.
William Congreve
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I am liberating man from the degrading chimera known as `conscience'.
Adolf Hitler
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It is neither safe nor prudent to do anything against conscience.
Martin Luther
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At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the hardest service. What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart...that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Freedom is a clear conscience.
Periander
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It's a rare human being who understands intellectually and emotionally the freedoms contained within our Constitution and the right of every human being to make decisions about their own lives consistent with their own conscience and without the interference of government.
Geoffrey Fieger
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Are you genuine? Or just an actor? A representative? Or what it is that is represented?-In the end, you might merely be someone mimicking an actor ... Second question of conscience.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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A performer may be taken in by his own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which he fosters is the one and only reality. In such cases we have a sense in which the performer comes to be his own audience; he comes to be performer and observer of the same show. Presumably he introcepts or incorporates the standards he attempts to maintain in the presence of others so that even in their absence his conscience requires him to act in a socially proper way.
Erving Goffman
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Then they began to say: 'Yes, but how can we know what is God's Word, and what is right or wrong? We must learn this from the Pope and the councils.' Very well then, let them conclude and say what they please, yet I will reply, you cannot put your confidence in that nor thus satisfy your conscience, for you must determine this matter yourself, for your very life depends upon it. Therefore God must speak to your heart: This is God's Word; otherwise you are undecided.
Martin Luther
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To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.
William Ellery Channing
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The conscience of this nation is the Constitution.
William O. Douglas
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Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. But we assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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No torment in the world is comparable to an accusing conscience.
William Gurnall
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It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral sermons, and goody goodness won’t chime.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Are you one who looks on? or lends a hand? - or who looks away, sidles off?...Third question for the conscience.
Friedrich Nietzsche
