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Conscience Quotes

Browse 3008 quotes about Conscience.

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Conscience Quotes

“It's an ideal existence. Out in the open. Berating the president of he United States... I'm free to thwart and torment the authorities - that is to say, I can get out my hostilities - because I'm protected in my conscience by the knowledge that what I'm doing is morally right. I've never been so relaxed. I've never been so happy.”

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Author:Benjamin Spock
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“Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.”

MenPersonsIndividualGreaterMoralityCreaturesDegreesAuthorityConscienceFlowStructureLimitationImpulseDestructiveHumaneSanctionsSocial PsychologyAutonomousOrganizationalInhibitionsOrganizational StructureObedience To AuthorityIndividual Morality
Author:Stanley Milgram
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“Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“Even the wisest of mankind cannot live by reason alone; pure arrogant reason, denying the claims of prejudice (which commonly are also the claims of conscience), leads to a wasteland of withered hopes and crying loneliness, empty of God and man: the wilderness in which Satan tempted Christ was not more dreadful than the arid expanse of intellectual vanity deprived of tradition and intuition, where modern man is tempted by his own pride.”

MenReasonChristModernMankindLonelinessCryPridePureIntellectualConscienceTraditionEmptyClaimsPrejudiceIntuitionVanitySatanWildernessLive ByArrogantTemptedDeprivedWisestModern ManWitheredExpanseWasteland
Book:The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
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“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.”

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Author:James McHenry
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“God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.”

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Book:Twelve Sermons ...
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“In that disputable point of persecuting men for conscience sake, I see such dreadful consequences rising, I would be as fully convinced of the truth of it, as a mathematical demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it or make it a part of my religion.”

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Book:The evidences of the Christian religion: with additional discourses on the following subjects, viz: Of God, and his attributes. The power and wisdom of God in the creation. The providence of God. The worship of God. Advantages of revelation above natural reason. Excellency of the Christian institution. Dignity of the Scripture language. Against atheism and infidelity. Against the modern free-thinkers. Immortality of the soul, and a future state. Death and judgment
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“The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation-must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.”

MenWorldProblemFacesNationsGrowthDecisionEnvironmentPolicyBalanceConscienceMen And WomenResourcesPopulationHungryFedsPopulation GrowthOverpopulationWorld PovertyEnvironmental ProblemsWorld PopulationReproductive HealthEnvironmental StewardshipPopulation Problem
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
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“Contrary to the romantic way in which our history is/has been portrayed, politicians are NOT 'men of good conscience.' In the real world, it takes a psychopath to want to rule over other human beings. Unless you want to define the word 'service' in the context of what a bull does to a cow, in no way are the efforts of politicians in this regard any kind of 'service'.”

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Author:Edward Britton
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“Nonviolence is a powerful as well as a just weapon. If you confront a man who has long been cruelly misusing you, and say, "Punish me, if you will; I do not deserve it, but I will accept it, so that the world will know I am right and you are wrong," then you wield a powerful and a just weapon. This man, your oppressor, is automatically morally defeated, and if he has any conscience, he is ashamed.”

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Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“One wonders that there can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It is a matter of meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come to the conclusion in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my conscience that he must be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being.”

MenHeartMatterEnoughFoundGivenWonderMeditationMinutesMy HeartConscienceExtremesConclusionPostsUnconsciousCourageousSerenityMegalomaniacs
Book:Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)
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“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?”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)
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“My Christian brethren, if the crowd of difficulties which stand between your souls and God succeed in keeping you away, all is lost. Right into the Presence you must force your way, with no concealment, baring the soul with all its ailments before Him, asking, not the arrest of the consequences of sin, but the cleansing of the conscience " from dead works to serve the living God," so that if you must suffer, you will suffer as a forgiven man.”

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Author:Frederick William Robertson
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“It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.”

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Book:The Sacred Writings of Tertullian (Annotated Edition)
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“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.”

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Book:Justice
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“Talking to a peasant one day, I suggested to him the hypothesis that there might indeed be a God who governs heaven and earth, a Consciousness or Conscience of the Universe, but that even so it would not be sufficient reason to assume that the soul of every man was immortal in the traditional and concrete sense. And he replied, "Then what good is God?”

MenSoulReasonMightEarthUniverseHeavenConsciousnessTalkingOne DayConscienceAssumingEvery ManTraditionalImmortalitySufficientImmortalConcreteHypothesisPeasantsHeaven And Earth
Book:The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations
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“The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”

MenHumansCharacterPurposeSufferingHumanityEvilMoralOpinionHellProgressHe ManStandardsConscienceIntentionCrueltyOppressionGood ManOppressedInjuredGood IntentionsTreasonHuman SufferingPersonal CharacterMoral Evil
Author:Robert Briffault
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“More and more it seems to me that the philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself, in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today. So far all these extraordinary furtherers of men whom one calls philosophers, though they themselves have rarely felt like friends of wisdom but rather like disagreeable fools and dangerous question marks, have found their task, their hard, unwanted, inescapable task, but eventually also the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their time.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.”

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Book:Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
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“Conscience ... seldom comes to a man's aid while he is in the zenith of health and revelling in pomp and luxury upon illgotten spoils. It is generally the last act of his life, and it comes too late to be of much service to others here, or to himself hereafter.”

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Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799
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“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.”

IfsThinkingMenMadeEnoughMomentsTogetherPurposeJusticeMoralHistoryIssuesInvolvedPeriodsConscienceMarkAidsConfusionGreat MenMutualTrumpetsMoral IssuesMutual Aid
Author:Jane Addams
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“One good Man may take another's Word, if they so agree, but a whole Nation ought never to trust to any Honesty, but what is built upon Necessity; for unhappy is the People, and their Constitution will be ever precarious, whose Welfare must depend upon the Virtues and Consciences of Ministers and Politicians.”

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Author:Bernard de Mandeville
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“The faith towards God in Christ must be sure and steadfast, that it may solace and make glad the conscience, and put it to rest. When a man has this certainty, he has overcome the serpent; but if he be doubtful of the doctrine, it is for him very dangerous to dispute with the devil.”

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Book:The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt
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“God has come again and again in various Forms, has spoken again and again in different words and different languages the Same One Truth - but how many are there that live up to it? Instead of making Truth the vitalbreath of his life, man compromises by making over and over againa mechanical religion of it - a handy staff to lean on in times of adversity, a soothing balm for his conscience or a tradition to be followed.”

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Author:Meher Baba
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“Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne ; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.”

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Book:Leviathan: Top 100 Classic Novels
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“Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.”

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Book:Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...
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