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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“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.”

LongMatterRealityRunningLawNationsMemoriesStudyRecordsConditionsConversationConscienceUltimateAffairArguingProceduresAccountingDisappointingLaw SchoolArcaneDreams From My FatherUncooperative
Book:Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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“He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.”

SoundExistenceSilenceSkyStreetsSolitudeConscienceBusyLovelyDawnNightmareSolitaryAmazedFootstepsSereneDesertedMellow
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
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“Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk.”

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Book:The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words
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“You never forget about things you've done that you know you shouldn't have done. They hang around your mind, linger like a thief casing a joint for a future job. You see them there, dramatically lurking nearby in striped monochrome, leaping behind postboxes as soon as your head whips around to confront them. Or it's a familiar face in a crowd that you glimpse but then lose sight of. An annoying Where's Wally? forever locked away and hidden in every thought in your conscience. The bad thing that you did, always there to let you know.”

KnowsMindDoneJobsFacesLosesForgetBehindsForeverConscienceSightCrowdsFamiliarBad ThingsNever ForgetAnnoyingLockedThievesGlimpseJointsWhipsLurkingFamiliar FacesMonochrome
Book:The Time of My Life
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“I...asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, 'What if the difference between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?... fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror”

IfsMeanWholeSocialDifferencesConscienceBuiltMirrorsBlameDollarsSandWhat IfInherentStemShiftingPyramidsDespisedShifting SandGenomics
Author:David Mitchell
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“Laziness and cowardice explain why so many men. . . remain under a life-long tutelage and why it is so easy for some men to set themselves up as the guardians of all the rest. . . If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who decides my diet, I need not trouble myself. If I am willing to pay, I need not think. Others will do it for me.”

IfsThinkingMenNeedsLongBookEasyPayTroubleWillingConscienceDoctorsDietsCowardiceLazinessPastorGuardianLong LifeDoctor WhoTutelage
Author:Immanuel Kant
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“A good conscience is eight parts of courage.”

ConscienceEight
Book:David Balfour: Being Memoirs Of His Adventures At Home And Abroad, The Second Part: In Which Are Set Forth His Misfortunes Anent The Appin Murder; His Troubles With Lord Advocate Grant; Captivity On The Bass Rock; Journey Into Holland And France; And Singular Relations With James More Drummond Or Macgregor, A Son Of The Notorious Rob Roy, And His Daughter Catriona
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“A part of a healthy conscience is being able to confront consciencelessness. When you teach your daughter, explicitly or by passive rejection, that she must ignore her outrage, that she must be kind and accepting to the point of not defending herself or other people, that she must not rock the boat for any reason, you are NOT strengthening her posocial sense, you are damaging it-and the first person she will stop protecting is herself.”

PeopleFirstsKindPersonsReasonAbleAcceptingTeachRocksHealthyDaughterConscienceBoatRejectionBe KindPassiveOutrageFirst PersonStrengtheningYour Daughter
Author:Martha Stout
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“Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.”

MenLittlesDoneCharacterWould BePastJoyCertainValuesNamesCausesSinMistakeTaughtConscienceActiveMotiveEthicalOur FutureWarningOur PastFormationLoathingTaught UsEfficacyMoralistEthical Values
Book:The Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray
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“Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil--and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus.”

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Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes - all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge,,then we become the gravediggers.”

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Author:Rod Serling
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“What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?”

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Author:Franz Kafka
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“There comes a time when a man finds himself in front of a dark uncrossable abyss, which he himself has spent years digging. He cannot go forward, and has no way back. Words have failed, tears won't help, and who would he call out to? He can't even remember his own name. Then the man sees that on this god's green earth there is but one true suffering: the torment of guilty conscience.”

MenWayYearsHelpingEarthRememberSufferingNamesDarkFrontsTearsConscienceGreenGuiltyTormentAbyssDiggingThere Comes A TimeGreen EarthGuilty Conscience
Author:Ivo Andric
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“Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.”

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Book:The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
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“There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”

BelieveHumansSongOrderGoalCommonSilenceDestinyPathAwarenessSolitudeConscienceDifficultyAncientIsolationFulfilledBeing HumanEnchantedClumsyRiteSorrowfulInsurmountableEnchanted Places
Author:Pablo Neruda
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“‎''Just think, never to be glad or disappointed. Never to like anyone and get cross at him and forgive him. Never to sleep or feel cold, never to make a mistake and have a stomach-ache and be cured from it, never to have a birthday party, drink beer, and have a bad conscience... How terrible.”

ThinkingFeelsSleepPartyMistakeColdTerribleDrinkConscienceCrossesForgivingGladBeerDisappointedStomachAcheBirthday Party
Book:Tales from Moominvalley
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“There was a message written in pencil on the tiles by the roller towel. This was it: What is the purpose of life? Trout plundered his pockets for a pen or pencil. He had an answer to the question. But he had nothing to write with, not even a burnt match. So he left the question unanswered, but here is what he would have written, if he had found anything to write with: To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool.”

IfsWritingEyePurposeUniverseFoundLeftAnswersWrittenFoolMessagesConscienceEarsCreatorPocketsPensPurpose Of LifePencilsTroutTowelsUnansweredTilesWhat Is The Purpose Of Life
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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