Best conscience & moral Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“What should we do? We have no wish to interrupt the destroyer's work of saving lives... But war is war and the people being picked up out of the water are soldiers bound for the front; soldiers who are to shoot at our German brothers... The question whether we are to perish in despair or defiance, or survive all trails with a live conscience, depends wholly and solely on whether we believe in the forgiveness of sins. This 25th January was the turning point in my life, because it opened my eyes to the utter impossibility of a moral universe.”

“We believe in a moral code. Communism denies innate right or wrong. As W. Cleon Skousen has said in his timely book, The Naked Communist: The communist 'has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency.' This is a most damnable doctrine. People who truly accept such a philosophy have neither conscience nor honor. Force, trickery, lies, broken promises are wholly justified.”

Source: Title of liberty

“No great, inspiring culture of the future can be built upon the moral principle of relativism. For at its bottom such a culture holds that nothing is better than anything else, and that all things are in themselves equally meaningless. Except for the fragments of faith (in progress, in compassion, in conscience, in hope) to which it still clings, illegitimately, such a culture teaches every one of its children that life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”

Children Stills Life Is Culture Compassion Moral Principles Teach Progress Conscience Built All Things Bottom Tales Idiot Meaningless Fragments Relativism Moral Principles Signifying

Author:Michael Novak

“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.”

“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

“But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.”

Wells Action Values Voice Powerful Behinds Moral Opinion Judgment Creating Intellectual Conscience Concerned Difficulty Tables Noble Levers Refining Valuation

Author:Georg Brandes

“Conscience is what? It is putting together a moral act and a moral ideal, and measuring the act by the ideal. It is putting this moral act which you do alongside the eternal laws of God, and seeing how it stands by those laws of God.”

Together Law Moral Seeing Eternal Conscience Ideals Measuring

Book:Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott

Source: Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott

“Organized religion has too often followed the road of other people's institutions. It has made adjustments, compromises, and surrenders to a materialistic civilization for the benefit of material security in spite of occasional twinges of conscience and moral protests. The result has been that today much of organized religion is materialistically solvent but spiritually bankrupt.”

“Although a person acting under authority performs actions that seem to violate standards of conscience, it would not be true to say that he loses his moral sense. Instead, it acquires a radically different focus. He does not respond with a moral sentiment to the actions he performs. Rather, his moral concern now shifts to a consideration of how well he is living up to the expectations that the authority has of him.”

Wells Persons Doe Different Seems Action Loses Acting Moral Focus Authority Standards Expectations Conscience Concern Being True Acquire Consideration Sentiments

Author:Stanley Milgram

“The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification.”

People Action Moral Roles Conscience Assuming Agents Productive Transfers Thoughts And Actions

Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

Source: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“Evolution throws a wonderful light on all the struggles, eccentricities, tortuous developments of the human conscience in the past. It is the only theory of morals that does. And evolution throws just as much light on the ethical and social struggle today; and it is the only theory that does. What a strange age ours is from the religious point of view! What a hopeless age from the philosopher's point of view! Yet it is a very good age, the best that ever was. No evolutionist is a pessimist.”

“Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is "faithful in that which is least" is dependable in all the world.”

Source: Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock

“There is seemingly no biological benefit to acting with conscience; if there were, only moral individuals would survive and procreate. Sadly, we know that's not true. The benefit of conscience is that you won't suffer guilt (private) or shame (public), and that by your own self-imposed definition, you are a moral human, a special kind of animal who takes unique pride in elevating him/herself above the termites.”

Source: How Could You Do That?!: Abdication of Character, Courage, Consci

“we make a great fuss about national conscience, but it consists mainly in insisting upon everyone ascribing our national policy to highly moral motives, rather than in examining what our motives really are.”

Motivation Moral United States Policy Conscience Motive Examining Insisting

Book:Economic philosophy

Source: Economic philosophy

“I surrendered my moral conscience to the fact that I was a soldier, and therefore a cog in a relatively low position of a great machine.”

Facts Moral Position Lows Conscience Machines Soldier Cogs Moral Conscience

Author:Otto Ohlendorf

“Most of the money given by rich people in "charity" is made up of conscience money, "ransom," political bribery, and bids for titles.... One buys moral credit by signing a cheque, which is easier than turning a prayer wheel.”

People Made Political Given Prayer Moral Rich Easier Conscience Charity Credit Titles Wheels Rich People Signing Bribery Ransom Cheques

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“You can be a thorough-going Neo-Darwinian without imagination, metaphysics, poetry, conscience, or decency. For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live.”

“I am a Christian according to my conscience in belief,in purpose and wish;Mnot of course by the orthodox standard. But I am content, and have a feeling of trust and safety. The Machiavellian mind and the merchant mind are at one in their simple faith in the power of segmental division to rule all--in the dichotomy of power and morals and of money and morals.”

Mind Feelings Christian Purpose Courses Belief Wish Simple Money Moral Power Standards Conscience Safety Orthodox Division Merchants Dichotomy Simple Faith

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“The adolescent frequently supposes that she is breaking out of the confines of her mundane, schoolgirl existence simply in order to break rules and defy authority. . . . She rids herself of the "oughts" and "musts" that convert every minor infraction into a sin of omission or commission. It certainly does not occur to her or to her family that by questioning the moral standards she erected as a child she is taking the first steps in her journey toward a firmer, more reasonable, less harsh, more ethical form of conscience.”

Firsts Children Doe Form Order Sin Existence Moral Steps Break Journey Authority Standards Conscience Reasonable Ethical First Steps Questioning Minors Adolescence Harsh Mundane Omission

Author:Louise J. Kaplan

“Each man's private conscience ought to be a nice little self-registering thermometer: he ought to carry his moral code incorruptibly and explicitly within himself, and not care what the world thinks. The mass of human beings, however, are not made that way; and many people have been saved from crime or sin by the simple dislike of doing things they would not like to confess.”

People Thinking Men World Way Humans Littles Has Beens Made Self Care Human Beings Sin Simple Moral Nice Crime Ought Morality Mass Conscience Saved Code Dislike Moral Code Thermometers

Book:Modes and Morals

Source: Modes and Morals

“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.”

“While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will [demonstrate] the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man, who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.”

Men Action Christian Religion Community Religious Moral Return Members Conscience Credit Expected Innocence Territory Protected Deities Beneficence

Author:George Washington

“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents' verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don't speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”

Men Children Play Whole Facts Speak Language Parent Moral Roles Achievement Conscience Organization Complexes Factors Indispensable Formation Prohibition

Author:Selma Fraiberg

“Our humanity is trapped by moral adolescents. We have too many men of science, too few men of God. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom and power without conscience.”

Men World Science Humanity Moral Conscience Trapped Brilliance Man Of God

Author:Omar N. Bradley

“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

“To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.”

Feels Heart Stills Action Form Speak Consciousness Moral Democracy Gratitude Conscience Consequence Abundance Have Faith Invites Disobedience Civil Disobedience Moral Action

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“But will this attention to poverty be sustained or transient? That depends on our leaders - whether we step up and sustain our moral commitment as the country's conscience would naturally want us to do.”

Want Country Attention Leader Moral Steps Poverty Depends Conscience Commitment Want U Step Up Transient

Author:John Edward

“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.”

“I know that I shall have lost to the jungle if I take a weak moral standpoint or relax my mental punctiliousness. I have therefore come to a certain belief which is based on three powerful effective commandments: THOU SHALT BE ENTERTAINING AT ALL TIMES. THOU SHALT OBEY THY ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE AT ALL TIMES. THOU SHALT MAKE EACH FILM AS IF IT WERE THY LAST.”

Ifs Knows Lasts Film Certain Three Belief Lost Powerful Moral Conscience Weak All Time Artistic Relax Entertaining Commandments Jungle Standpoint

Author:Ingmar Bergman

“Humanity's moral conscience progresses, slowly yet surely.”

Humanity Moral Progress Conscience Moral Conscience

Author:Cheikh Anta Diop

“What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.”

Ifs Years Mind Kind May Persons Happens Earth Values Nations Answers Attitude Accepting Moral Hell Taken Mankind Baby Conscience Twenties Regard Fabric Confronting Mind Set Value Systems

Author:Jesse Jackson

“Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.”

World Suffering Choices Moral Principles Land Conscience Notion Soldier Prisoner Land Of The Free Moral Choices Nuremberg

Author:John Pilger

“But the Bible says that the unreached will be judged on a quite different basis than those who have heard the gospel. God will judge the unreached on the basis of their response to His self-revelation in nature and conscience. The Bible says that from the created order alone, all persons can know that a Creator God exists and that God has implanted His moral law in the hearts of all persons so that they are held morally accountable to God (Rom. 1.20; 2.14-15). The Bible promises salvation to anyone who responds affirmatively to this self-revelation of God”

“Book CoverTo have people who are well informed but not constrained by conscience is conceivably, the most dangerous outcome of education possible. Indeed it could be argued that ignorance is better than unguided intelligence, for the most dangerous people are those who have knowledge without a moral framework.”

People Wells Book Moral Dangerous Ignorance Conscience Outcomes Framework

Author:Ernest L. Boyer

“Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act, an act of the whole nature.-Belief or unbelief is a test of a man's whole spiritual condition, because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it.”

Men Wells Whole Spiritual Belief Understanding Moral Conditions Conscience Concerned Tests Affection Criminals Unbelief

Book:MacLaren's Commentary- Expositions of Holy Scripture

Source: MacLaren's Commentary- Expositions of Holy Scripture

“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

“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?”

Asks Moral Kings Safe Conscience Tyranny Sanity Cowardice Make Peace Not War Expediency Voiceless

Book:The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement

Source: The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement

“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

“It is time that the great center of our people, who reject the violence and unreasonableness of both the extreme right and the extreme left, searched their consciences, mustered their moral and physical courage, shed their intimidated silence, and declare their consciences.”

People Left Silence Moral Violence Conscience Extremes Rejects Shed Intimidated Physical Courage

Book:Declaration of conscience

Source: Declaration of conscience

“I was nurtured in the church; I went to a Catholic school; I was an altar boy; I went to a Catholic university; I was steeped in the moral tradition of the Catholic Church. My Catholicism plays a very strong role. But I thought President John F.Kennedy answered rather well when he said that ultimately my conduct as a public official does not come ex cathedra from Rome; it comes from my conscience.”

School Strong President Church Moral Boys Conscience Tradition Catholic Catholicism Very Strong Catholic School

Author:Bruce Babbitt

“Abraham Lincoln had a deep realism; he did not deceive or mislead himself, but faced the world he had to deal with as it really is. At the same time, he had a striking moral intelligence, and a confidence in the working of his own mind and conscience.”

World Mind Moral Conscience Deceiving Mislead

Author:William Lee Miller

“The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.”

Children Evil Results Moral Influence Conscience Notion Breathe Atmosphere Guidance Good And Evil Surround

Author:Jean Paul

“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.

“But dogs, which have no ability to sin nor moral conscience, do not have an ability to reject Jesus.”

Jesus Sin Ability Moral Dog Conscience Rejects Moral Conscience

Author:Rick Warren

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

“There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self conscience, so apparently moral...But I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous...more extravagant and bright. We are...raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.”

World Should Years Ends Self Moral Journey Dangerous Conscience Temptation Meals Tomatoes Extravagant Cain Wilder Lazarus

Author:Annie Dillard

“The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything”

Feelings Moral Kindness Higher Conscience Consideration Milk Rats Decency Friendliness Scruples Rodents Compunction

Book:In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers

Source: In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers

“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 moral code.”

Men Matter Voice Moral Opinion Conscience Average Surface Code Public Opinion Deep Down Whispering Memories Dreams Reflections Average Man Moral Code Below The Surface

Author:Carl Jung

“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.”

Conscience Quotes

Related topics

Conscience Quotes