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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief - to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience - it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.”

Ifs Men Firsts May Philosophy Certain Belief Talking Conscience Believer Streams Word Of God Strain Monopoly Non Believer

Author:Mitt Romney

“Melancholia for Freud is the relationship that the subject takes up with respect to itself from the position of what he calls conscience or what he later calls the super-ego. And that can be lacerated - if you think of the anorexic who sees themselves from the perspective of the image they have, of the image they have of themselves in the mirror which is false - that would be the super-ego. Super-ego is what generates depression and it is what has to be dealt with in psychoanalysis.”

Ifs Thinking Would Be Subjects Position Perspective Ego Conscience Mirrors Psychoanalysis Anorexics

Author:Simon Critchley

“...if we allow ourselves contemplative time in nature-whether it's gardening, going for a walk with the dog, or being in the heart of the southern Utah wilderness-then we can hear the voice of our conscience. If we listen to that voice, it asks us to be conscious. And if we become conscious we choose to live lives of consequence.”

Ifs Heart Asks Voice Walks Dog Conscious Conscience Consequence Live Life Wilderness Southern Gardening Contemplative Utah Southern Utah

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“Our consciences are not infallible, and they can become warped or weakened if not kept aligned by the infallible Word of God.”

Ifs Conscience Word Of God Infallible

Author:J. Oswald Sanders

“If we knew we were to die at twelve o'clock tomorrow night, would we have to step up our evangelistic program, or could we in all good conscience carry on just as we are?”

Ifs Night Dies Steps Tomorrow Conscience Program Clock Twelve Step Up

Author:Ray Comfort

“Serve God with integrity, and if you achieve no success, at least no sin will lie upon your conscience.”

Ifs Lying Sin Achieve Integrity Conscience Trust In God Serving God Commitment To God Servant Of God

Book:Morning and Evening

Source: Morning and Evening

“I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.”

Ifs Thinking Age Middle Conscience Aging Fifty Middle Ages Best Times Degeneration Fatty

Book:More Lay Thoughts of a Dean

Source: More Lay Thoughts of a Dean

“If you shut yourself up disdainfully in your ivory tower and insist that you have your own conscience and are satisfied with its approval, it is because you know that everybody is criticizing you, condemning you, or laughing at you.”

Ifs Knows Laughing Conscience Satisfied Criticize Approval Towers Ivory Condemning Ivory Tower

Author:Luigi Pirandello

“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

“Is it not true that your gloominess and bad temper are due to your lack of determination in breaking the subtle snares laid by your own disordered desires? The daily examination of conscience is an indispensible help if we are to follow our Lord with sincerity of heart and integrity of life.”

Ifs Heart Helping Desire Lord Integrity Conscience Determination Dues Subtle Sincerity Temper Examination Our Lord Snares Bad Temper

Author:Josemaria Escriva

“If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to Whom it is addressed, it must be that in which those who join in it are guided only be their free choice-by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences.”

People Ifs Heart Choices Holy Conscience Regard Worthy Impulse Homage Free Choice Omniscient

Book:The Papers of James Madison: 8 February-24 October 1813

Source: The Papers of James Madison: 8 February-24 October 1813

“If you get yourself out of politics, religion, everything, and think as a human, think based on love to everybody, at that moment you have a choice: to be an animal, or to be a human. I choose to be a human being, with conscience and responsibility.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Moments Choices Human Beings Animal Responsibility Conscience That Moment

Author:Mosab Hassan Yousef

“Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”

“Selection [of UN delegates] by governments cannot give the peoples of the world the feeling of being fairly and proportionately represented. The moral authority of the UN would be considerable enhanced if the delegates were elected directly by the people. Were they responsible to an electorate, they would have much more freedom to follow their consciences.”

People Ifs World Giving Feelings Government Would Be Moral Authority Conscience Responsible Selection Delegates Electorate Moral Authority

Book:The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It

Source: The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It

“Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: "Today, if you hear God's voice, harden not your heart." Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.”

Ifs Should Heart Moments Today Next Voice Alive Tomorrow Conscience Prophet Royal

Author:Pio of Pietrelcina

“What we really need to avoid is this epidemic of false positivism and false happiness, which says if it hurts, it must be bad. Sometimes it hurts because you have a conscience.”

Ifs Needs Sometimes Hurt Conscience It Hurts Epidemics Positivism Sometimes It Hurts False Happiness

Author:Marianne Williamson

“If you love our country and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience. Vote for candidates up and down the ticket.”

Ifs Knows Children Country Speak Love You Conscience And Love Vote Our Children Our Country Your Children Candidates Tickets Up And Down Love Your Children

Author:Ted Cruz

“There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth or a human combination or society. It hath fallen out sometimes that Papists, Protestants, Jews, and Turks may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these two hinges: that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ships prayers or worship, nor be compelled [restrained] from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any.”

Ifs Humans May Two Soul Sometimes Turns Prayer Common Liberty Practice Sea Particular Worship Hundred Conscience Jew Ships Combination Fallen Woe Compelled Protestants Commonwealth Hinges

Author:Roger Williams

“I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.”

Ifs Thinking Jobs Responsibility Position Conscience Arguing Requirements Time To Leave

Author:Elena Kagan

“If those who oppose Freethought did not strive to force all to think as they do, accept Christ by faith, believe the bible to be infallible, keep Sunday as a holy day, and work for a future reward, then our fight would be at an end instantly. Liberty of Conscience is all we ask - not control of any class, creed, or sect.”

Ifs Thinking Believe Ends Would Be Fighting Asks Force Christ Liberty Accepting Class Atheism Holy Conscience Rewards Strive Positive Atheism Sunday Creeds Sects Infallible Holy Days

Author:Etta Semple

“So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.”

Ifs World Long Wish Fear Opinion Judgment Conscience Believer Judgement Earnest Unwise

Book:The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Miscellany

Source: The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Miscellany

“Senator apparently having overcome his loyalty to his wife and father. [Ted] Cruz finally came out and endorsed Donald Trump writing on Facebook, "If Clinton wins, we know with 100 percent certainty that she would deliver on her left-wing promises with devastating results for our country. My conscience tells me I must do whatever I can to stop that."”

Ifs Knows Writing I Can Country Father Winning Left Results Wife Trump Promise Percent Conscience Overcoming Wings Clinton Loyalty Our Country Certainty Senators Left Wing Cruz

Author:Chris Hayes

“As Pope Francis says in Amoris laetitia, pastors must "make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them" (no. 37). As for the former statement, we should only be afraid if the church is smaller because of our failure to welcome people and preach the Gospel in a way that touches their hearts.”

People Ifs Way Should Heart Has Beens Form Church Rooms Situation Capable Conscience Complexes Statements Welcome Former Limitation Faithful Pope Pastor Discernment

Author:John I. Jenkins

“I think that the only ultimate guide we have is our conscience, and if the law of the land goes against our conscience I think we should disobey the law.”

Ifs Thinking Should Law Land Conscience Ultimate Guides

Author:Pierre Trudeau

“My understanding of the Electoral College is that they have the right to vote for who they want. So they should vote their conscience, and if their conscience leads them that way, they should follow their conscience.”

Ifs Way Want Should Understanding College Conscience Vote Right To Vote Electoral College

Author:Barbara Boxer

“I think in the end officials in each country's judicial system will do what they believe is right because if they do something bad to somebody it's on their conscience for the rest of their lives.”

Ifs Thinking Believe Ends Country Conscience Officials Judicial Judicial System

Author:Bernie Ecclestone

“Ideally, anything one writes should have a social conscience: if you can write a story that thrills, and with a good message, that's the perfect type of a story.”

Ifs Should Writing Stories Social Perfect Type Messages Conscience Should Have

Author:Stan Lee

“I would be quite content if I myself could be rated fifty-fifty in merits and demerits. But one thing I can say for myself: I have had a clear conscience all my life. Please mark my words: I have made quite a few mistakes, and I have my own share of responsibility for some of the mistakes made by Comrade Mao Zedong. But it can be said that I made my mistake with good intentions. There is nobody who doesn't make mistakes.”

“Christians living in a democracy should always vote if they can. If they cannot in conscience bring themselves to vote for any of the candidates on offer (in the UK quite often there are several candidates for a parliamentary seat) they might consider deliberately spoiling the ballot paper as a sad protest which still says 'but I believe in being involved'.”

Ifs Should Believe Stills Might Christian I Believe Democracy Involved Offers Paper Conscience Vote I Believe In Candidates Seats Protest Ballots Parliamentary

Author:N. T. Wright

“I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.”

Ifs Thinking Suffering Conscience Posterity Reproach

Book:The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Abridged)

Source: The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Abridged)

“The conscience can be a strong guide in life if we allow it.”

Ifs Strong Conscience Guides

Author:Joyce Meyer

“If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.”

Ifs Mind Ideas Matter Individual Rooms Moral Vision Knowledge Courage Learning Intellectual Conscience Management Committees Confronting Moral Compass Moral Life

Author:Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

“If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.”

Ifs Men Mean States Reason Literature Half Conscience Contrary Our Time One Half

Book:The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)

Source: The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)

“If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.”

“Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.”

Ifs World Doe Church This World Brother Conscience Distance Unity Consumerism Free Market Overconsumption Your Brother Being Free

Author:Bono

“The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are to love truly and freely, we must be able to give something that is truly our own to another. If our heart does not belong to us, asks Merton, how can we give it to another?”

Ifs Giving Heart Doe Real Able Asks Decision Impossible Masters Judgment Conscience Conform Immature Parrots Real Freedom Judgment Of Others

Author:Jon Katz

“Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”

Ifs Men Trying Littles Sometimes Sports Sin Answers Company Drink Jokes Devil Conscience Drinking Temptation Beer Spite Nonsense Merry Trifles Short Beer

Author:Martin Luther

“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

Ifs World Hate Conscience Guilt Hated Wicked Approved Friendless Without Friends

Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Source: The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

“This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood, So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is-- I hold it towards you.”

Ifs Heart Dream Hands Might Night Wish Silence Blood Cold Capable Conscience Red Calm Warm Streams Dry Veins Earnest Chill Tombs Grasping Icy

Author:John Keats

“I should love to satisfy all, if I possibly can; but in trying to satisfy all, I may be able to satisfy none. I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the best course is to satisfy one’s own conscience and leave the world to form its own judgment, favorable or otherwise.”

Ifs World Should Trying May Able Spiritual Form Courses Judgment Conscience Conclusion

Author:Mahatma Gandhi

“All I have to do is keep my spirit, feelings and conscience like a sheet of blank paper, and let the Spirit and power of God write upon it what He pleases. When He writes, I will read; but if I read before He writes, I am very likely to be wrong”

Ifs Writing Feelings Spirit Please Paper Conscience Blank Sheets Power Of God Blank Paper

Author:Brigham Young

“If we train our conscience, it kisses us while it hurts”

Ifs Hurt Kissing Conscience Train It Hurts

Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche

Source: Basic Writings of Nietzsche

“There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.”

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)

“I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.”

“I must congratulate myself, in passing, for never having lost the ability to examine my conscience, never having lost the gift of finding myself wanting & defective. Why fear the criticism of others when you, yourself, are first out of the critical gate? If self-denigration is the race I am the winner, even before the starting gun. Collect the bets.”

Ifs Firsts Self Lost Ability Race Findings Gun Conscience Criticism Starting Critical Passing Passings Winner Gates Defective Finding Myself Criticism Of Others

Book:Teacher Man: A Memoir

Source: Teacher Man: A Memoir

“With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.”

Ifs Trying Wells Kind Made Enough Shows Eye Social Results Blood Tears Evolution Conscience Mirrors Deny Passing Passings Colour Salt Reserves

Author:Jose Saramago

“Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.”

Ifs Matter Political Belief Social Growth Differences Religious Rooms Opinion Healthy Diversity Conscience Intellect Wide Tolerance Differences Of Opinion

Author:Theodore Roosevelt

“What would it be like if I had something to defend - a home, a country, a family - and I found myself attacked by these ghostly men, these trusting boys? How do you fight an enemy who fights with neither enmity nor anger but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and without conscience?”

Ifs Men Country Home Would Be Order Fighting Found Family Enemy Boys Conscience Anger Superiors Protest Submission Attacking Defenders Enmity Faceless

Book:The Glass Palace: A Novel

Source: The Glass Palace: A Novel

“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?”

“I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”

Ifs Firsts Stills Drink Please Conscience Pope Primacy

Author:John Henry Newman