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Conscience Quotes

Browse 3008 quotes about Conscience.

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Conscience Quotes

“How do men feel whose whole lives (and many men's lives are) are lies, schemes, and subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone? Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow where a mask in his own privacy, and to his own conscience?”

MenFeelsWholeLyingCompanyWatchesConscienceFellowsWhole LifeHypocrisyPrivacyMaskSchemesArtificeWatch MeSubterfuge
Book:Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)
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“To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.”

WantFeelsMeanReasonOpportunityGrowsFreedomConditionsRespectConscienceProhibitionFree Thought
Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“From Memorial Day to Labor Day, you may wear white shoes. Not before and not after. As a command, the White Shoe Edict should be clear and simple enough. Do not violate it. In a society in which everything else has become relative, a matter of how it makes you feel, a question between you and your conscience, and an opportunity for you to be really you, this is an absolute.”

FeelsShouldMayMatterEnoughOpportunitySimpleWhiteClearConscienceLaborAbsolutesShoesCommandRelativeMemorialMemorial DayLabor DayWhite Shoes
Book:Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium
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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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“If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.”

PeopleIfsWayWantFeelsMeanPersonsJusticeDogParticularConscienceDifficultyKicksUnfairKickingCondemnation
Book:Life and letters
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“I have had the accomplishment of something like this at heart ever since I was a boy.... So I feel tonight like the man who is lodging happily in the inn which lies half way along the journey and that in time, with a fresh impulse, we shall go the rest of the journey and sleep at the journey's end like men with a quiet conscience.”

MenWayFeelsHeartEndsLyingSleepHalfBoysJourneyHe ManQuietAmbitionConscienceImpulseAccomplishmentTonightInnsHalf WayTariffs
Author:Woodrow Wilson
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“Control cannot be called conscience until we are able to take it inside us and make it our own, until--in spite of the fact that the wrongs we have done or imagined will never be punished or known--we nonetheless feel that the clutch in the stomach, that chill upon the soul, that self-inflicted misery called guilt.”

FeelsSoulSelfDoneFactsAbleKnownConscienceGuiltMiserySpiteStomachChillClutchSelf Inflicted
Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex
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“I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right.”

FeelsWellsSometimesSeemsFacesWorkDoubtDutyConscienceProfoundSatisfactionFollowingSuperiorsEmptinessMidstSpontaneousObeyingEnnuiSneerFatality
Author:Gustave Flaubert
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“While criticism or fear of punishment may restrain us from doing wrong, it does not make us wish to do right. Disregarding this simple fact is the great error into which parents and educators fall when they rely on these negative means of correction. The only effective discipline is self-discipline, motivated by the inner desire to act meritoriously in order to do well in one's own eyes, according to one's own values, so that one may feel good about oneself may "have a good conscience.”

FeelsWellsMayMeanDoeSelfFactsEyeDesireValuesOrderFallWishParentSimpleDisciplineConscienceNegativeCriticismErrorsOneselfPunishmentFeel GoodRelyMotivatedSelf DisciplineEducatorCorrections
Author:Bruno Bettelheim
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“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.”

NeedsFeelsFirstsLooksChildrenSelfActionSocialCausesParentBlackCommunityAbilityWhiteMoralIdentityPersonalityDevelopmentAmountInvolvedNormalConscienceConcernGuiltUnlikelySelf CenteredBlack Or WhiteBlack CommunityConcern For OthersCultural IdentitySocial ActionMoral Development
Author:James P. Comer
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“An older child, one who possesses a conscience, will be troubled with self-reproaches and feelings of shame for his naughtiness, even if he is not discovered. But our two-year-olds and our three-year- olds experience guilt feelings only when they feel or anticipate disapproval from the outside. In doing this, they have taken the first steps toward the goal of conscience, but there is a long way ahead before the policeman outside becomes the policeman inside.”

IfsWayFeelsYearsFirstsChildrenLongTwoSelfFeelingsThreeGoalStepsTakenConscienceShameGuiltTwo YearsThree YearsFirst StepsLong WayPolicemenAnticipateReproachDisapprovalThree Year OldsTwo Year OldsGuilt Feelings
Author:Selma Fraiberg
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“Listen to your conscience regarding something that you simply know you should do, then start small on it - make a promise and keep it. Then move forward and make a little larger promise and keep it. Eventually you'll discover that your sense of honor will become greater than your moods, and that will give you a level of confidence and excitement that you can move to other areas where you feel you need to make improvements or give service.”

KnowsNeedsGivingFeelsShouldLittlesMovingLevelsGreaterHonorPromiseConscienceAreasImprovementMoodMoving ForwardExcitement
Author:Stephen Covey
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“Unfortunately I feel like a lot of the issues that the show [OJ Simpson ] was dealing with are still very much in the forefront of the American consciousness and the world consciousness today. Police misconduct was at the heart of the defense and Johnny Cochran did a masterful job at putting that defense at the forefront of the jury's conscience as opposed to the double homicide of Ron [Goldman] and Nicole [Brown Simpson].”

WorldFeelsHeartStillsShowsTodayJobsConsciousnessIssuesConsciencePoliceDefenseBrownJuryHomicideNicoleMisconductOj Simpson
Author:Sterling K. Brown
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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.”

FeelsYearsHumansChildrenReasonDreamCareLawPoliticalPurposeLosesAnimalPartyWasteEatingConscienceDon't CareNostalgiaTeethJustificationApologizingOffenseBrushesPolitical PartiesIdenticalStainsEating AnimalsTime CapsulesKeepsakes
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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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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“I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods: I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes; Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”

WantFeelsHeartMayLostBornCrimeFieldsSorrowSummerConscienceWoodsEnvyNobleRageMoodBeastWeedVoidCagesLicenseSlothCaptivesLoved And Lost
Author:Alfred Lord Tennyson
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“Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience-- yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim-- except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.”

MenWantNeedsFeelsMovingForceSocialNumbersLeaderPrinciplesModernSubjectsWillingFitTasteAuthorityConscienceCapitalismMachinesFunctionAimIndependentExpectedLarge NumbersFrictionEasily Influenced
Author:Erich Fromm
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“Many Introverts are also "highly sensitive," which sounds poetic, but is actually a technical term in psychology. If you are a sensitive sort, then you're more apt than the average person to feel pleasantly overwhelmed by Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" or a well-turned phrase or an act of extraordinary kindness. You may be quicker than others to feel sickened by violence and ugliness, and you likely have a very strong conscience.”

IfsFeelsWellsMayPersonsStrongSoundTermKindnessPsychologyViolenceConscienceExtraordinaryAverageSensitivePhrasesPoeticVery StrongIntrovertOverwhelmedUglinessMoonlightAverage PersonSonatas
Book:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
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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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“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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“Honestly this is not going to change unless the people who want to prevent these kinds of mass shootings from taking place feel at least as passionate, at least as mobilized and well-funded as the NRA and the gun manufacturers are because the politics in Congress are such where even members of Congress who know better are fearful if they vote their conscience and support common sense measures like background checks, they're worried they're going to lose.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWantFeelsWellsKindLosesCommonSupportMembersMassGunConscienceVoteCongressPassionateHonestlyBackgroundsChecksCommon SenseWorriedShootingFearfulGun ControlNraMass ShootingsBackground Checks
Author:Barack Obama
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