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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“The Holy Scriptures...can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness.....Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.”

Men Government Order Courses Strong Enjoy Justice Holy Quiet Conscience Constitution Court Scripture Pursue Secure Purity Wicked Stability Usefulness Holy Scriptures

Author:James McHenry

“We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.”

“When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?”

Thinking Men Should Humans Law Justice Principles Conscience Consequence Eternity This Life Contradiction

Author:William Wilberforce

“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.”

Peace Justice Higher Conscience Court Peace And Justice Peace Justice

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“When there exists anywhere a state of suffering, a wrong, a condition of affairs that men of feeling deplore and that troubles the conscience of the upright, to become resigned to it is wicked. Although the evil flaunts itself before our eyes, and no remedy is in sight, we must go and seek a remedy. In the creation of the God of Justice, evil can be but a transitory state.”

Men States Feelings Eye Suffering Evil Justice Trouble Conditions Creation Conscience Sight Affair Wicked Remedy Transitory Resigned

Book:Justice

Source: Justice

“What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.”

Ifs Thinking Men Made Enough Moments Together Purpose Justice Moral History Issues Involved Periods Conscience Mark Aids Confusion Great Men Mutual Trumpets Moral Issues Mutual Aid

Author:Jane Addams

“Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness to our society.”

War Would Be Voice Justice Speech Conscience Mere Illness Absence Graves Our Society Symptoms Dissent Prevailing

Book:The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren

Source: The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren

“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.”

Men Doe Interest Justice Liberty Conscience Regard Sake Liberalism Consistent Maximum Something Better Peace And Justice Dissatisfied Reformers

Author:Ralph Barton Perry

“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.”

Source: Letters to a Young Lawer (Easyread Large Edition)

“My conscience is clear, because I know that in my conscience and in front of God I am guilty of nothing. I hope human justice will see at the same way.”

Knows Way Humans Justice Clear Fronts Conscience Guilty

Author:Giulio Andreotti

“Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”

Enough Justice Strength Conscience Faults Coward Stoops

Author:Oliver Goldsmith

“The Spirit of Justice is the single most important seed Piers planted; if you don't live by its teaching, your chance of salvation is nil. Unless Conscience and the Cardinal Virtues form the food that people live on, just take my word for it, they're utterly lost - every single living soul among them!”

People Ifs Important Soul Wisdom Form Spirit Politics Lost Justice Chance Economy Virtue Teaching Conscience Salvation Seeds Liberalism Live By Cardinals Piers

Author:William Langland

“There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.”

Men Giving Justice Teach Atheism Conscience Positive Atheism Dues Honestly Injury

Author:Pierre Bayle

“Conscience is justice's best minister; it threatens, promises, rewards, and punishes and keeps all under control; the busy must attend to its remonstrances, the most powerful submit to its reproof, and the angry endure its upbraidings. While conscience is our friend all is peace; but if once offended farewell the tranquil mind.”

Ifs Mind Justice Powerful Promise Conscience Angry Rewards Endure Busy Ministers Most Powerful Submit Farewell Offended Tranquil Reproof

Author:Mary Wortley Montagu

“Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.”

Justice Arms Conscience Injustice Naked Locks Steel Quarrels Thrice

Book:The plays and poems of William Shakspeare

Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare

“Freedom of conscience is a natural right, both antecedent and superior to all human laws and institutions whatever; a right which laws never gave and a right which laws can never take away.”

Humans Reason Law Individual Natural Justice Responsibility Conscience Constitution Independence Institutions Superiors Individual Rights Free Thought

Author:John Goodwin

“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.”

People Ifs Way Want Feels Mean Persons Justice Dog Particular Conscience Difficulty Kicks Unfair Kicking Condemnation

Book:Life and letters

Source: Life and letters

“True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right and wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has developed with mankind ... If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?”

Ifs Men Years Littles Law Justice Quality Taken Mankind Conscience Essence All Time Code Sensations Fragments

Author:Walter Van Tilburg Clark

“Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.”

Humans Justice Liberty Quiet Conscience Fairness Berlin Human Happiness Fairness And Equality

Author:Isaiah Berlin

“All the buildings of justice will remain idle on the day when all men have high conscience!”

Men Justice Building Conscience Idle

Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan

“The world was created because God willed it, but why did He will it? Judaism has maintained, in all of its versions, that this world is the arena that God created for man, half beast and half angel; to prove that he could be a moral being...man was given dominion over nature, but he was commanded to behave towards the rest of creation with justice and compassion. Man lives, always, in tension between his power and the limits set by his conscience.”

Men World Given Justice Half Compassion Moral Creation This World Prove Limits Conscience Angel Environmental Gods Will Versions Behave Beast Tension Judaism Arena Stewardship Dominion

Author:Arthur Hertzberg

“God's justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is 'too kind' to punish the ungodly has become deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws everyday nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.”

Kind Form Justice Moral Practice Millions Forever Eternal Draws Conscience Responsible Everyday Dare Command Pleasant Sinner Vague Repent Trifles Severity Iniquity Opiates

Book:The Knowledge of the Holy

Source: The Knowledge of the Holy

“Conscience, the sense of right, the power of perceiving moral distinctions, the power of discerning between justice and injustice, excellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and our sole capacity for religion. ...God, in giving us conscience, has implanted a principle within us which forbids us to prostrate ourselves before mere power, or to offer praise where we do not discover worth.”

“Recognition of the Genocide is the triumph of human conscience and justice over intolerance and hatred.”

Humans Justice Conscience Hatred Recognition Triumph Genocide Intolerance

Author:Serzh Sargsyan

“That Wall Street has gone down because of this is justice ... They built a castle to rip people off. Not once in all these years have I come across a person inside a big Wall Street firm who was having a crisis of conscience.”

People Years Persons Bigs Justice Gone Streets Wall Conscience Built Crisis Firm Castles Rip

Author:Steve Eisman

“The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being.”

Source: The Descent of Man

“There are three things that earthly riches can never do; they can never satisfy divine justice, they can never pacify divine wrath, nor can they every quiet a guilty conscience. And till these things are done man is undone.”

Men Done Three Justice Divine Quiet Conscience Riches Guilty Wrath Three Things Undone Guilty Conscience Divine Justice

Book:The select works of ... Thomas Brooks

Source: The select works of ... Thomas Brooks

“I still oppose "Visit Myanmar Year," and I would ask tourists to stay away. Burma is not going to run away. They should come back to Burma at a time when it is a democratic society where people are secure - where there is justice, where there is rule of law. They'll have a much better time. And they can travel around Burma with a clear conscience.”

People Should Years Stills Running Law Asks Justice Clear Conscience Democratic Secure Running Away Rule Of Law Tourists Democratic Society Burma Clear Conscience

Author:Aung San Suu Kyi

“How can someone live with their own conscience when you reward a domestic terrorist with continued safety and betray the family of fallen police officer waiting for decades for justice for his murder? So let's ask the question. Hillary Clinton as a coddler of the brutal Castro brothers and betrayer of the family of fallen state trooper Werner Foerster and his family.”

States Asks Waiting Justice Brother Conscience Murder Police Safety Clinton Rewards Decades Terrorist Fallen Officers Betray Brutal Police Officer Castro

Author:Chris Christie

“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

“Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.”

Ends Lasts Dies Justice Eternal Conscience Temporary

Author:Martin Luther

“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

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”

Source: The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: The human rights years, 1945-1948

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”

Whole Political Humanity Peace Voice Religious Justice Conscience Social Justice Fairness Peace And Justice Peace Justice Law And Justice

Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need chartiy; they need justice.”

Needs Helping Justice Poor Conscience Darling Help The Poor

Book:The House of the Spirits: A Novel

Source: The House of the Spirits: A Novel

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Way Littles Long I Can Eye Universe Justice Moral Atheism Figures Divine Conscience Sight Atheist Curves Arcs

Book:Centenary Edition [of the Writings of Theodore Parker]

Source: Centenary Edition [of the Writings of Theodore Parker]

“Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!”

Men Justice Creatures Eternal Conscience Murder Praise Satisfied Listen To Me

Book:Frankenstein: ; Or, The Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein: ; Or, The Modern Prometheus

“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

“Today social justice represents one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of the world. The abyss between those who are within the world 'order' and those who are excluded is widening day by day. The use of leading-edge technologies has made it possible to accumulate wealth in a way that is fantastic but perverse because it is unjustly distributed. Twenty-percent of humankind control eighty percent of all means of life. That fact creates a dangerous imbalance in the movement of history.”

Source: The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today

“A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.”

Men Justice Honor Conscience Vanity Fierce

Book:Dialogues of sovereigns and statesmen

Source: Dialogues of sovereigns and statesmen

“The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporfic to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites.”

People Believe Reality Culture Justice Diversity Conscience Social Justice Guilt Myth Circles Ideology Integration Integrated Cracked Banner

Author:Steven Biko

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.”

Men Needs Feelings Light Culture Nations Justice Fire Crime Needed Diversity Conscience Social Justice Storm Gentle Hypocrisy Exposed Showers Thunder Earthquakes Propriety Whirlwind

Author:Frederick Douglass

“All token Blacks have the same experience. I have been pointed at as a solution to things that have not yet begun to be solved, because pointing at us token Blacks eases consciences of millions, and this is dreadfully wrong.”

Has Beens Justice Millions Diversity Solutions Conscience Social Justice Ease Pointing Tokens

Author:Leontyne Price

“... we believe in the vocation of communion and participation of our people, who day to day awaken to their political conscience and express their desire for change and profound democratization of society. A change based on justice, built with love, and which will bring us the most anxiously desired fruits of peace.”

People Believe Political Desire Justice Conscience Built Profound Fruit Communion Day To Day Participation Vocation Democratization

Author:Adolfo Perez Esquivel

“Out of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes told us that he very often did.”

Men Should Firsts Eye Dies Justice Principles Century Honest Security Becoming Degrees Conscience Misery Ethical Entitled Industrious Workmen Ethical Principles

Book:People at work

Source: People at work

“Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.”

Ifs Form Spirit Individual Justice Conscience Accidents Bars Justified

Book:The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion

Source: The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion

“Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation.”

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“To have something to say is a question of sleepless nights and worry and endless ratiocination of subject - of endless trying to dig out the essential truth, the essential justice. As a first premise you have to develop a conscience and if on top of that you have talent so much the better. But if you have talent without the conscience, you are just one of many thousands of journalists.”

Ifs Trying Firsts Night Justice Worry Subjects Talent Essentials Ethics Conscience Endless Journalist Just One Premises Sleepless Nights

Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Conscience is the chamber of justice.”

Justice Ethics Conscience Fairness Chamber

Author:Origen

“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.”