Best conscience & action Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition

“...conscience looks backwards and judges past actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction, which if weak we call regret, and if severe remorse.”

Ifs Looks Kind Action Past Judging Regret Conscience Weak Severe Backwards Remorse Dissatisfaction

Book:The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Source: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

“As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.”

“Not to be cowardly when it comes to our own actions! Not to leave them in the lurch!--The sting of conscience is indecent.”

Action Conscience Remorse Cowardly

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will [demonstrate] the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man, who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.”

Men Action Christian Religion Community Religious Moral Return Members Conscience Credit Expected Innocence Territory Protected Deities Beneficence

Author:George Washington

“Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others.”

Action Judging Conscience

Author:Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

“To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.”

Feels Heart Stills Action Form Speak Consciousness Moral Democracy Gratitude Conscience Consequence Abundance Have Faith Invites Disobedience Civil Disobedience Moral Action

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“There can be no be no better instruction... than that every man who is to deal with his neighbor to follow these commandments. 'Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them,' and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' If these were always followed, then everything would instruct and arrange itself; then no law books nor courts nor judicial actions would be required. All things would quietly and simply be set to rights, for everyone's heart and conscience would guide them.”

“Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action”

Action Virtue Conscience Agents Observers

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.”

Thinking Giving Reason Helping Eye Action Suffering Natural Pleasure Five Judging Conscience Vitality Penance

Author:Thomas Merton

“Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

Humans Long Light Action Natural Opinion Alive Air Conscience Direct Medicine Injustice Creator Surface Tension Covered Exposed Exposure Ugliness Direct Action Covered Up

Book:Why We Can't Wait

Source: Why We Can't Wait

“It does not matter what religion you are as long as your conscience guides your words and actions. We are all reflections of God means we are all reflections of his image - which is LIGHT. There is only one God and that is the cosmic heart of the universe - whatever you choose to call him or her. The heart within us is what connects us to God (the heart of the universe). This super basic concept is preached in all religions. God is TRUTH and LIGHT. Only through your conscience do you connect to him.”

Heart Mean Long Doe Matter Light Action Universe Reflection Conscience Concepts Guides Cosmic You Choose Religion God Words And Actions

Author:Suzy Kassem

“Images at their passionate and truthful best are as powerful as words can ever be. If they alone cannot bring change, they can at least provide and understanding mirror of man's actions, thereby sharpening human awareness and awakening conscience.”

Ifs Men Humans Action Understanding Powerful Awareness Conscience Mirrors Passionate Awakening Truthful Sharpening

Author:Cornell Capa

“Courage is......following your conscience instead of "following the crowd." Sacrificing personal gain for the benefit of others. Speaking your mind even though others don't agree. Taking complete responsibility for your actions and your mistakes. Doing what you know is right, regardless of the consequence.”

Knows Inspirational Mind Action Mistake Responsibility Sacrifice Benefits Conscience Consequence Gains Agree Crowds Following Personal Gain Following The Crowd

Author:Eric Harvey

“I feel especially vulnerable when I know I've let the reactive ego take control of my actions and it may have had hurtful implications with someone I love. I feel vulnerable when I don't listen to my conscience.”

Knows Feels May Action Ego Conscience Vulnerable Implications Hurtful Take Control

Author:Richard Brancatisano

“One can contrive a religious motivation for virtually any choice of action, from commitment to the highest ideals to support for the most horrendous atrocities. In the sacred texts, we can find uplifting calls for peace, justice and mercy, along with the most genocidal passages in the literary canon. Conscience is our guide, whatever trappings we might choose to clothe it in.”

Action Motivation Choices Religious Justice Support Conscience Commitment Mercy Uplifting

Author:Noam Chomsky

“God is speaking to us. But are we listening to Him? When our conscience begins to nudge us for whatever reason, we might have this low-level misery or uneasiness about whatever it is we've done or we're about to do. At times like this, it's wise to prayerfully consider whether we're offending God with our actions.”

Reason Done Might Action Levels Wise Listening Lows Conscience Misery Our Actions Nudge Offending Uneasiness Low Level

Author:Joyce Meyer

“What I would say to the young men and women who are beset by hopelessness and doubt is that they should go and see what is being done on the ground to fight poverty, not like going to the zoo but to take action, to open their hearts and their consciences.”

Men Should Heart Done Action Young Fighting Poverty Doubt Conscience Men And Women Young Man Hopeless Hopelessness Zoos Being Done

Author:Abbe Pierre

“Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”

Firsts Children Action Christian Force Nations Causes Waiting Born Religious Justice Compassion Liberty Greater Conscience Mercy Sick Constitution Needy Persecuted Religious Liberty

Author:Mitt Romney

“Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.”

Men Action Social Freedom Clear Conscience Mercy Talkers

Book:Plays Political: The Apple Cart, On the Rocks, Geneva

Source: Plays Political: The Apple Cart, On the Rocks, Geneva

“History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”

Source: Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill

“In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a restlessness of the body and the senses: it is the restlessness of the "external man." When the internal man has been reduced to silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action, so to speak, exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses and the body.”

Men Has Beens Body Action Passion Speak Given Voice Silence Conscience Senses Tendencies Internals Carrie Exhibits Restlessness Suffocating

Author:Pope John Paul II

“But there was no hiding from Conscience. Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin. It would find you. The past always did. Which was why... it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you... Who wouldn't be afraid of this?”

Source: The Brutal Telling: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

“The best Armour of Old Age is a well spent life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labours to improve himself from his Youth, will in Age reap the happiest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age; but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well-spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul”

“The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience.”

Men Reason Feelings Government Action Influence Son Conscience Slave Contrary Commit Patriotism Patriot Immoral Free Man Scoundrels Confessing Fatherland

Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy

Source: I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy

“To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created.”

Needs Doe Facts Action Faces Speak Force Peace Situation Accepting Nice Effects Authority Conscience Violent Being Nice Resorts Meek Petitions New Situations

Author:Barbara Deming

“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?”

“Meditation is the art of awareness. And once you are aware, out of your awareness your actions will arise - not out of conscience. Conscience is cultivated by others, by the vested interests, by the establishment. Consciousness is yours. It is individual, it is not collective. Conscience is part of the mob psychology. Consciousness gives you dignity because it gives you individuality. It gives you rebellion, it makes you capable of saying yes or no of your own accord. There is no foreign agency manipulating you in the name of religion, morality, etcetera.”

“Man was destined for society. His morality therefore was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality... The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.”

“The only guide to a man's conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.”

Men Action Memories Conscience Commitment Guides Sincerity Shields Rectitude

Book:Great destiny: sixty years of the memorable events in the life of the man of the century recounted in his own incomparable words

Source: Great destiny: sixty years of the memorable events in the life of the man of the century recounted in his own incomparable words

“I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.”

“I read American sagas (of the west) and I do not see people who went in search of material things. I see people who wrote down that what they sought was an escape from an old world which dictated their conscience and established their merit based on who their parents.”

People World Action Parent Materials Conscience West Merit Affirmative Action Affirmative Material Things Old World Saga

Author:Alan Keyes

“The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state.”

Ifs War States Government Action Law Order Principles Morality Authority Conscience Human Rights Committed Criminals Trials Recognition Nuremberg Nuremberg Trials

Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Source: The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

“Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.”

People Inspirational Should Done Light Eye Action Desire Opinion Virtue Conscience Theater Witness Avoided Public Eye Praiseworthy Good Actions Ostentation

Book:Thoughts of Cicero, on the following subjects, viz. I. Religion, II. Man ... XII. Miscellaneous thoughts. Published in Latin and French by the Abbé d'Olivet; to which is now added, an English translation, with notes. [By Alexander Wishart.]

Source: Thoughts of Cicero, on the following subjects, viz. I. Religion, II. Man ... XII. Miscellaneous thoughts. Published in Latin and French by the Abbé d'Olivet; to which is now added, an English translation, with notes. [By Alexander Wishart.]

Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes