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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“In mortals there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base.”

CareHolyConscienceMereNobleMortalsEnjoymentGravityIdlenessTriflesProceedingFrivolityIncapability
Book:Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.
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“Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.”

PeopleStatesEvilVoiceLeaderHappenedCryAuthorityConscienceObedienceSaneDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceObedience To God
Author:Dorothy Day
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“Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.”

MenPainFightingAttentionToo MuchConditionsCircumstancesConscienceWoundsRemorseVigorOld Wounds
Book:Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of
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“The villager, born humbly and bred hard, Content his wealth, and poverty his guard, In action simply just, in conscience clear, By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear, His means but scanty, and his wants but few, Labor his business, and his pleasure too, Enjoys more comforts in a single hour Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.”

WantGivingMeanHardAgeActionEnjoyBornHoursWealthPleasurePovertyClearComfortConscienceLaborGuiltWealth And Poverty
Book:The Poetical Works of C. Churchill: In Three Volumes. with the Life of the Author
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“Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.”

ReligionLibertyFireConscienceOppositesAssumingSellingPopeIndulgenceDespotismCounterfeitTolerationWithholdingFagots
Book:Complete Works
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“No man is happier than he who loves and fulfills that particular work for the world which falls to his share. Even though the full understanding of his work, and of its ultimate value, may not be present with him; if he but love it--always assuming that his conscience approves--it brings an abounding satisfaction.”

IfsMenWorldMayValuesFallUnderstandingWorkShareParticularConscienceUltimateAssumingSatisfaction
Book:Life, Its Nature, Varieties&phenomena. 4th Ed
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“Formerly, a nation that broke the peace, did not trouble to try and prove to the world that it was done solely from higher motives. ... Now war has a bad conscience. Now every nation assures us that it is bleeding for a human cause, the fate of which hangs in the balance of its victory ... No nation dares to admit the guilt of blood before the world.”

WorldTryingHumansWarDoneNationsCausesFateTroubleBloodBalanceVictoryHigherProveConscienceGuiltDareBrokeWar Of The WorldsMotiveBleeding
Author:Ellen Key
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“In the wildest anarchy of man's insurgent appetites and sins there is still a reclaiming voice,--a voice which, even when in practice disregarded, it is impossible not to own; and to which, at the very moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that we cannot refuse the homage of what ourselves do feel and acknowledge to be the best, the highest principles of our nature.”

MenFeelsStillsMomentsVoiceSinPrinciplesPracticeImpossibleHighestConscienceRefuseObedienceAcknowledgeBeing The BestAnarchyAppetiteHomageInsurgentDisregarded
Book:On the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man by Thomas Chalmers
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“There are some women in whom conscience is so strongly developed that it leaves little room for anything else. Love is scarcely felt before duty rushes to encase it, anger impossible because one must always be calm and see both sides, pity evaporates in expedients, even grief is felt as a sort of bruised sense of injury, a resentment that one should have grief forced upon one when one has always acted for the best.”

ShouldLittlesFeltSidesLove IsRoomsGriefImpossibleDutyConscienceShould HaveCalmPityInjuryResentmentBoth SidesBruised
Book:Selected Stories
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“I have an idea that conscience impedes quite as many merits as faults, is a sort of alloy, a nickel which may prevent silver from bending but also prevents it from shining.”

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Book:I'll stand by you: selected letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland : with narrative by Sylvia Townsend Warner
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“The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.”

MayLongActionCoursesClearGoes OnProjectsConscienceDetermineBackgroundsSinnerConsolationAssuredRecklessFuture Time
Author:Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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“It takes courage to have a conscience when you seem to see others getting something tangible out of not bothering to struggle with the morality of a situation. It gets frustrating and demoralizing. This is precisely where character comes in. All throughout history special people have felt compelled to do what they objectively saw as right and good - even in the face of humiliation or rejection or expulsion or torture or death. That is because they believed that certain ideas were more important than individual well-being.”

PeopleWellsImportantIdeasCharacterSeemsFacesCertainIndividualFeltSituationStruggleSawsSpecialMoralityConscienceWell BeingBotherTortureRejectionHumiliationCompelledFrustratingTangibleDemoralizingExpulsionSpecial People
Author:Laura Schlessinger
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“There is seemingly no biological benefit to acting with conscience; if there were, only moral individuals would survive and procreate. Sadly, we know that's not true. The benefit of conscience is that you won't suffer guilt (private) or shame (public), and that by your own self-imposed definition, you are a moral human, a special kind of animal who takes unique pride in elevating him/herself above the termites.”

IfsKnowsHumansKindSelfSufferingIndividualAnimalActingMoralSpecialPrideBenefitsUniqueConscienceShameGuiltDefinitionsElevating
Book:How Could You Do That?!: Abdication of Character, Courage, Consci
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