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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

RealityMotivationalLawPoliticalOrderIndividualCommunityLibertyAcceptingBreakAcceptanceWillingKingsHighestRespectConscienceInjusticeLibertarianActivismAfrican AmericanProtestPenaltiesUnjustDissentDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceImprisonmentPeace And JusticeIndividual RightsPeace JusticeLibertarian PartyEquality And JusticeLiberty And JusticeDignity And RespectGood KingsJustice And InjusticeUnjust LawsJustice EqualityUnjust War
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it. It may help us to escape all criticism, we may even be able to deceive ourselves in the belief of our obvious righteousness. But deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, 'There is something not right,' no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.”

MenHumansMayMatterHelpingAbleLawLyingBeliefVoiceHuman BeingsMoralOpinionConscienceCriticismFellowsAverageObviousSurfaceCodeSubtleRighteousnessCustomsDeceivingPublic OpinionDeep DownWhisperingCloaksMemories Dreams ReflectionsAverage ManObservanceMoral CodeBelow The Surface
Author:Carl Jung
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“The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.”

LongMatterRealityRunningLawNationsMemoriesStudyRecordsConditionsConversationConscienceUltimateAffairArguingProceduresAccountingDisappointingLaw SchoolArcaneDreams From My FatherUncooperative
Book:Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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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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“The more truthful I am with myself and others, the more my conscience is clear and tranquil. Thus, I can more thoroughly and unequivocally inhabit the present moment and accept everything that happens without fear, knowing that what goes around comes around (the law of karma). Ethical morality and self-discipline represent the good ground, or stable basis. Mindful awareness is the skillful and efficacious grow-path, or way. Wisdom and compassion constitute the fruit, or result. This is the essence of Buddhism [...]”

WayI CanSelfMomentsHappensLawGrowsResultsCompassionAcceptingKnowingPathClearAwarenessBuddhismDisciplineMoralityConscienceEssenceBasesFruitKarmaPresent MomentEthicalStableTruthfulSelf DisciplineTranquilSkillfulGoes Around Comes AroundLaw Of Karma
Author:Surya Das
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“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom.”

LawMoralityConscienceTraditionCustoms
Book:Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Journey Into Italy, and Letters, with Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices, Etc
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“It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them from injury. It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things.”

PersonsIdeasLawLibertyRightsEconomicConscienceEconomicsAbsolutesPropertyMissionsSecureEnjoymentInjurySentimentsInterfereLegislatorsAbsolute Power
Book:The Law
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“The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind.”

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Book:The electron, its isolation and measurement ant the determination of some of its properties
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“No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression. My conscience is my own - my creators - not man's. I shall never sink the rights of mankind to the malice, wrong, or avarice of another's wishes, though those wishes come to me in the relation of client and attorney.”

MenEnoughLawWishMy OwnRightsMankindConscienceRelationCreatorLawyerOppressionClientsMaliceAttorneyAvariceUtteranceBribe
Book:The Lincoln treasury
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“I am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, and highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through all their councils, theologians, and canon laws that their conscience orders them to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find their opportunity.”

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Author:Abraham Lincoln
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“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression.”

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Author:Oscar Romero
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“There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.”

MenFirstsHumansMaySoulStatesGovernmentFormLawReligionThreeBeliefExistenceWiseMoralityConscienceThirdsFoundationRewardsPunishmentDoctrineChainsImmortalityArticlesVirtuousTigersHuman SoulSharksExistence Of GodReward And Punishment
Book:Letters of Mrs. Adams: the wife of John Adams
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“You can t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty. And least of all can you condemn an artist pursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. In that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking for the experience of imagined adventures, there are no policemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread of opinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nay to his temptations if not his conscience?”

IfsMenWorldCareLawArtistSoundEmotionMoralOpinionCreativeClearAdventureDutyCircumstancesIntegrityConsciencePressureAimBoundsSeekingTemptationDreadInteriorsPolicemenNo Pressure
Book:Lord Jim (Unabridged Deluxe Edition): A Classic Novel of Guilt and Atonement From the Renowned Author of Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Secret Agent & Under Western Eyes (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)
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“There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.”

MayStatesLawVoiceTearsCostHighestConscienceDearSeparationBitterObedienceTorture
Book:The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts
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“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... In winning our freedom, we will so appeal to you heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.”

HeartEyeLawHumanityWinningProcessCommunityImpossibleConscienceBlindGenerosityAppealsBitternessSurvivorBrutalityDestroyersEye For An EyeWe Will Win
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.”

FirstsHumansChildrenPersonsSoulLawNamesIndividualReligiousSinMoralMilitaryFiguresMoralityAuthorityEthicsConscienceAdultsCommitmentOrganizationAbuseIndependenceBlindObedienceAgencySubstitutesHuman SoulVowMisuseBlind Obedience
Author:Joan D. Chittister
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“The legal system doesn't always serve as a good guide for your conscience. You can step way over the ethical line and still be inside the law. The same thing goes for rules, policies and procedures - you know, the organization's "internal laws." You can "go by the book" and still behave unethically. Still not move beyond mediocrity. High standards-the ethics of excellence-come to life through your basic values, your character, integrity and honesty. Obeying the law is the bare minimum.”

KnowsWayStillsBookCharacterMovingLawValuesLinesStepsHonestyPolicyIntegrityStandardsEthicsConscienceOrganizationExcellenceGuidesBehaveInternalsEthicalMediocrityMinimumProceduresObeyingHigh StandardsLegal SystemHonesty And IntegrityIntegrity CharacterObeying The LawPolicies And Procedures
Author:Price Pritchett
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“The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent - that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement.”

Has BeensStatesLawLeftChurchReligiousUnitedUnited StatesWorshipConscienceNobleAbsenceSeparationExperimentsPresidentialJudgementMakersEstablishmentRestraintChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StatePrecedentSeparation Between Church And State
Author:John Tyler
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“The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward, written precepts of the moral and divine laws, but above all lives God's law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will.”

KnowsWholeWisdomRealityLawPrayerPerfectMoralWrittenDivineConscienceFunctionUnionsPerceiveConcreteEnlighteningDivine Law
Book:No Man Is an Island
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“Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters deliver us to laws; they send us bound to rules of reason, holy messengers, pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, bibles laid open, millions of surprises, blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, the sound of glory ringing in our ears: without, our shame; within, our consciences; angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array one cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.”

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Book:The works of the Rev. George Herbert: with remarks on his writings, and a sketch of his life
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“I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness: and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard for the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit.”

MenShouldMayLawDesireNationsWishInterestOpinionEssentialsConscienceRegardProtectionDuesTreatedJustifyPermitTendernessDelicacyMy WishScruples
Book:Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses
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“We may gamble on outsmarting the law; we may even gamble on the leniency of man and the mercy of God-but no man ever won a gamble with his own conscience. Even should he think he has beaten his conscience into submission, his misdeeds still leave their mark upon him. Anyone who gambles against this fact has already lost his gamble.”

ThinkingMenShouldMayStillsFactsLawLostLosingConscienceMercyMarkBeatenSubmissionGambleMercy Of GodMisdeedsLeniency
Author:Sidney Greenberg
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“Think in the name of Almighty God. We must first have a worldwide awakening of the public conscience, a spiritual revival, a moral regeneration, before there can be permanent peace and real economic recovery. To this end we do not need new laws, but a new spirit; we do not need a change of government, but a change of the human heart. There can be no peace, there will be no recovery without it. Therefore, with a change of heart, let's all make a new start.”

ThinkingNeedsFirstsHumansHeartRealEndsGodGovernmentSpiritualLawSpiritNamesMoralEconomicConscienceAwakeningRecoveryPermanentAlmightyHuman HeartRevivalNeed A ChangeAlmighty GodRegenerationNew StartChange Of HeartEconomic Recovery
Author:William J. H. Boetcker
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