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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“The faith towards God in Christ must be sure and steadfast, that it may solace and make glad the conscience, and put it to rest. When a man has this certainty, he has overcome the serpent; but if he be doubtful of the doctrine, it is for him very dangerous to dispute with the devil.”

IfsMenMayChristDangerousDevilConscienceOvercomingGladDoctrineCertaintyDisputesSolaceDoubtfulSerpentSteadfast
Book:The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt
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“So possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow or till something dark and dreadful brings us to ourselves again.”

GrowsDarkSleepPleasureConscienceFlowTidesWickednessAwakenedSentinels
Book:The Fortunate Mistress: or, a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Bealau Known by the Name of Lady Roxana
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“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.”

MindMeanSelfReasonUseFormIndividualHigherDisciplineFitConscienceConcernedAbsenceRationalSelf RespectPhasesDegradeUnfree
Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“God has come again and again in various Forms, has spoken again and again in different words and different languages the Same One Truth - but how many are there that live up to it? Instead of making Truth the vitalbreath of his life, man compromises by making over and over againa mechanical religion of it - a handy staff to lean on in times of adversity, a soothing balm for his conscience or a tradition to be followed.”

MenDifferentFormLanguageConscienceTraditionAdversityVariousCompromiseAgain And AgainStaffSoothingHandyDifferent LanguagesTimes Of Adversity
Author:Meher Baba
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“Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne ; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.”

MenMayDoeJudgingConscienceDoctrineJudgementGood And EvilPresumptionLeviathan
Book:Leviathan: Top 100 Classic Novels
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“Organized religion has too often followed the road of other people's institutions. It has made adjustments, compromises, and surrenders to a materialistic civilization for the benefit of material security in spite of occasional twinges of conscience and moral protests. The result has been that today much of organized religion is materialistically solvent but spiritually bankrupt.”

PeopleHas BeensMadeTodayReligionResultsMoralSecurityMaterialsCivilizationBenefitsConscienceInstitutionsSurrenderCompromiseOrganizedSpiteProtestOccasionalAdjustmentMaterialisticOrganized Religion
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“Although a person acting under authority performs actions that seem to violate standards of conscience, it would not be true to say that he loses his moral sense. Instead, it acquires a radically different focus. He does not respond with a moral sentiment to the actions he performs. Rather, his moral concern now shifts to a consideration of how well he is living up to the expectations that the authority has of him.”

WellsPersonsDoeDifferentSeemsActionLosesActingMoralFocusAuthorityStandardsExpectationsConscienceConcernBeing TrueAcquireConsiderationSentiments
Author:Stanley Milgram
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“Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.”

MindHeartSoulSelfIndividualConscienceBeing TrueYour SoulSelf RespectSacredness
Book:Two Sermons Preached Before the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston: On the 14th and 21st of November, 1852, on Leaving Their Old and Entering a New Place of Worship
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“Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.”

MenDesirePoliticianAmbitionConscienceSkinsImprovementFortunateRapidsVehementSanguine
Book:Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...
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“Would it not be better to go home and live at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on this occasion.”

YearsCountryHomeAbleMorningClearDogConscienceRoundsConservativeEveningOccasionsParksQuartersHuntsSessionClear Conscience
Book:The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children
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“When a person tries to act in accordance with his conscience, when he tries to speak the truth, when he tries to behave like a citizen, even in conditions where citizenship is degraded, it won't necessarily lead anywhere, but it might. There's one thing, however, that will never lead anywhere, and that is speculating that such behavior will lead somewhere.”

TryingPersonsMightSpeakOne ThingConditionsCitizensBehaviorConscienceBehaveCitizenshipSpeak The Truth
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.”

IfsMayWholeChristianLawChristAnswersDutyOughtExerciseIntegrityOfficeConsciencePerfectionWhole LifePursuitHolinessConsiderationRighteousnessExceedPietySanctificationTribunalsChrist Alone
Book:On God and Political Duty: Calvin
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“As a reformer the liberal is dissatisfied with things as they are because they violate his exceptionally tender conscience.... Liberalism does not advocate change for its own sake, but for the sake of something better in the direction of what he regards as good, namely, the maximum of liberty consistent with a regard for all men and all interests -- the general happiness based on peace and justice.”

MenDoeInterestJusticeLibertyConscienceRegardSakeLiberalismConsistentMaximumSomething BetterPeace And JusticeDissatisfiedReformers
Author:Ralph Barton Perry
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“The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification.”

PeopleActionMoralRolesConscienceAssumingAgentsProductiveTransfersThoughts And Actions
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness.”

IfsMovingLawPoliticalPoliticsJusticeResponsibilityPeriodsLimitsApproachStandardsRespectConscienceCommitmentTraditionLawyerToleranceHypocrisyDisagreeRule Of LawPolitical CorrectnessApprovedCorrectnessAdvocacyAmerican Tradition
Book:Letters to a Young Lawer (Easyread Large Edition)
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“We respect the individual conscience of every American on the painful issue of abortion, but believe as a matter of law that this decision should be left to a woman, her conscience, her doctor and her God. But abortion should not only be be safe and legal, it should be rare.”

ShouldBelieveMatterLawIndividualLeftDecisionIssuesSafeConscienceDoctorsPainfulAbortion
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995
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“It is not only highly desirable but necessary that there should be legislation which shall carefully shield the interests of wage-workers, and which shall discriminate in favor of the honest and humane employer by removing the disadvantage under which he stands when compared with unscrupulous competitors who have no conscience and will do right only under fear of punishment.”

ShouldInterestHonestConscienceWorkersFavorsPunishmentLegislationDesirableCompetitorsEmployersHumaneShieldsDisadvantages
Book:The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
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“Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, seawrack, sands - alternately cool, warm, moist and dry - a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping bluegraygreen spit-flecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience.”

BodyWaterEmotionSeaEffectsTasteBirdConscienceWarmSmellDrySandWearyOutlookDwellingSpitBathingBodies Of WaterSea BirdsBleaching
Book:Isle of the Dead ; Eye of Cat
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“Raymond Aron ascribes to Weber the view that 'each man's conscience is irrefutable.' ... while [Weber] holds that an agent may be more or less rational in acting consistently with his values, the choice of any one particular evaluative stance or commitment can be no more rational than any other. All faiths and all evaluations are equally non-rational.”

MenMayValuesChoicesViewsActingParticularConscienceCommitmentRationalAgentsConsistentlyStanceEvaluationWeber
Author:Alasdair MacIntyre
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“It is quite certain that, if from childhood men were to begin to follow the first intimations of conscience, honestly to obey them and carry them out into act, the power of conscience would be so strengthened and improved within them, that it would soon become, what it evidently is intended to be, "a connecting principle between the creature and the Creator."”

IfsMenFirstsWould BeCertainPrinciplesChildhoodCreaturesConscienceCreatorHonestlyConnecting
Author:John Campbell Shairp
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“Man, full of emptiness and torn apart with homesickness for the desert has had to create from within himself an adventure, a torture-chamber, an unsafe and hazardous wilderness- this fool, this prisoner consumed with longing and despair, became the inventor of 'bad conscience'.”

MenAdventureFoolDespairConscienceLongingDesertTortureEmptinessWildernessPrisonerTornChamberConsumedInventorHomesicknessUnsafeTorn Apart
Book:Nietzsche: 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and Other Writings Student Edition
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“The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds.”

PeopleWorldArtIdeasSoulHandsLyingCultureFoundWealthVirtuePathJourneyHonorConscienceDeedsDevotionEnjoymentPhilanthropyGreat Idea
Book:Happiness - Essays On The Meaning Of Life
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“Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying "Enough!" He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable - this is Marcos.”

WayEnoughSpeakGroupsConscienceMajorityUncomfortableMinoritiesShut UpOppressedResistingMarcos
Author:Subcomandante Marcos
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“And so the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame. Preserve only a good conscience toward God, and a loving purpose toward your fellow men, and you need not wince nor tremble, though the pack of the spaniel-hearted hounds snarl at your heels.”

MenNeedsPurposeFameConscienceFellowsAppreciationPreservesGood ManHeelsPacksFellow ManHeartedBlastHowlHoundsCalumnyWinceSpaniels
Book:Lectures and Sermons
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“No age can have everthing and in material ways ours is more fortunate than any preceding one. Our ancestors appear to have mastered the art of living better than we are able to when an easy conscience, largely due to the unshaken faith of the time, left a marging of spiritual energy with which to enjoy life.”

WayArtAgeAbleSpiritualEnergyLeftEasyEnjoyMaterialsConscienceDuesFortunateAncestorEnjoy LifeArt Of LivingTime LeftSpiritual EnergyLiving Better
Author:Flora Thompson
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