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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.”

MenNeedsFeelingsLightCultureNationsJusticeFireCrimeNeededDiversityConscienceSocial JusticeStormGentleHypocrisyExposedShowersThunderEarthquakesProprietyWhirlwind
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“... 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.”

PeopleBelievePoliticalDesireJusticeConscienceBuiltProfoundFruitCommunionDay To DayParticipationVocationDemocratization
Author:Adolfo Perez Esquivel
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“Out of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes told us that he very often did.”

MenShouldFirstsEyeDiesJusticePrinciplesCenturyHonestSecurityBecomingDegreesConscienceMiseryEthicalEntitledIndustriousWorkmenEthical Principles
Book:People at work
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“Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Because the greater, better part of his existence transcends the body, he escapes the body's yoke, but is subject to that of society.”

MenFeelsBodySocialExistenceAcceptingMoralEnvironmentGreaterSocietySubjectsMaterialsConsciencePrivilegeSuperiorsCharacteristicsSuperiorityYokeGreat Society
Book:Suicide: A Study in Sociology
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“God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God . to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.”

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Author:John D. Rockefeller
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“We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections.”

MenMayMatterMightAnswersMoneyTalentCrimeConversationConscienceNo Matter WhatCommittedNewspapersDecayVariationObjectionsTiresome
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?”

MenFeelsYearsWellsActionPleasureConscienceGuiltMereIllPoisonOrganizedThrownFedsContemplatingRatsSeventiesRemorseGarbageLiving ThingsAccumulationIncompetentLife SpanGarbage Cans
Author:Cyril Connolly
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“In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.”

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Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne
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“Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.”

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Book:Daniel Deronda
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“It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face.”

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Book:The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
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“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom.”

LawMoralityConscienceTraditionCustoms
Book:Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Journey Into Italy, and Letters, with Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices, Etc
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“Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.”

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Book:The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion
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“I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

MenReligiousLibertyOpinionOughtCitizensConscienceEvery ManSentimentsProtectedDeitiesReligious FreedomConductingFreedom Of ReligionGood CitizenReligious LibertyChristian PatrioticGod And CountryChristian Freedom
Book:The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private
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“The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreebly to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”

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Book:The Writings of George Washington: pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses
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“The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.”

BeliefReligiousLibertyRightsEqualWorshipConscienceAccountsCivil RightsEqual RightsReligious BeliefBill Of RightsPretextReligion And GovernmentFirst Amendment RightsReligious Rights
Book:Selected Writings of James Madison
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“That all persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and eternal God, to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world; and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall, in no ways, be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion, or practice, in manners of faith and worship, nor shall they be compelled, at any time, to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatever.”

WorldWayPersonsReligiousLibertyPracticeEternalWorshipConscienceCreatorMannersAcknowledgeRulersMinistryAlmightyPersuasionCompelledObligedProvincesCivil Society
Author:William Penn
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“[I]t is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of private judgment in matters of religion, and of the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one's conscience.”

BelieveMatterGovernmentReligiousLibertyChristianityDoubtImpossibleSubjectsDivineDutyCitizensJudgmentWorshipConscienceRevelationsDivine Revelation
Author:Joseph Story
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