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Conscience Quotes

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Conscience Quotes

“I majored in journalism at Arizona State University, where I began writing the columns I write now, but I cannot, in good conscience, refer to myself as a writer. I'm a columnist, maybe a journalist, I guess I'm an author, but writer... no. That's not up to me to call myself, that's rather lofty. It's for the reader to decide.”

Writing States Reader Conscience University Journalism Journalist Columns Lofty Arizona Columnists

Author:Laurie Notaro

“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.”

Men I Can States President United Existence United States Authority Conscience Ideals Activism Protected Torment Relaxed Hostility Berating

Author:Benjamin Spock

“According to the state of a man's conscience, so do hope and fear on account of his deeds arise in his mind.”

Men Mind States Conscience Accounts Deeds Arise Hopes And Fears

Author:Ovid

“God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.”

War Soul States Jesus Christ Millions Civilization Conscience Destruction Occasions Servant Civil War Hypocrisy Sooner Or Later Persecution Uniformity

Book:The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed: And Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered

Source: The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed: And Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered

“There is no class of people so hard to manage in a state, as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched.”

People Hard States Class Honest Conscience Intention Manage Bewitched

Author:Napoleon Bonaparte

“To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against the liberty of conscience, which is one of the foundations of American life.”

States Church Liberty Particular Citizens Conscience Foundation Separation Presidential Church And State Allegiance Outrage Abraham Separation Of Church And State American Life Separation Between Church And State

Book:Americanism in Religion

Source: Americanism in Religion

“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

“People of faith should not invoke the power of the state to decide what everyone can believe or think or read or do. In such cases, like abortion or prayer or prohibition or sexual identity, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the free conscience of each person, not the coercive rule of secular law.”

People Thinking Should Believe Persons States Law Prayer Roles Cases Atheism Identity Conscience Appeals Abortion Secular Prohibition Invoke

Author:Edward Kennedy

“The establishment of religious freedom was no less momentous an achievement than the clearing of the great forest or the winning of independence, for the twin doctrines of separation of church and state and liberty of individual conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed America's most magnificent contribution to the freeing of Western man.”

“Two hundred years ago the forces of freedom challenged this idea. The children of the new enlightenment rose up to defy the tyranny of arrogant clergy and the censorship of pious bureaucrats. They boldly proclaimed that the state must be free from religious coercion and that religion must be free from state control. All individuals have the right to pursue the dictates of their own conscience. All citizens even have the right not to be religious at all.”

“Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.”

People States Evil Voice Leader Happened Cry Authority Conscience Obedience Sane Disobedience Civil Disobedience Obedience To God

Author:Dorothy Day

“The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.”

People Want May Real States Government Happens Individual Roles Cases Citizens Prove Conscience Majority Appeals Abortion Minorities Divided Disagree Prohibition Futility Transgression

Author:Edward Kennedy

“One should arrive at leading one's conscience to a state of development so that it becomes the voice of a better and higher self, of which the ordinary self is a servant.”

Should Self States Voice Development Higher Ordinary Conscience Servant Higher Self

Author:Vincent Van Gogh

“The longer men sin, the more easily they can; for every act of transgression weakens conscience, stupefies intellect, hardens hearts, adds force to bad habits, and takes force from good example. And, surely, there is nothing in such associations; as wicked affinities will insure to the sinner in the future state, to incline him to repentance.”

Men Heart States Force Sin Example Habit Conscience Add Intellect Wicked Sinner Repentance Association Bad Habits Affinity Good Examples Transgression Incline

Author:Edward Thomson

“Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray; he flattered only to ruin; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.”

Art States Reason Might Interest History Conscience Privilege Obligation Ruins Betray Justified Oath Treaties Roman Empire Inconvenient Flattered

Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.”

Should States United United States Conscience Sanity

Book:The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office

Source: The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office

“I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and equality of all churches, all sects and all beliefs before the law as a matter of right and not as a matter of favor. I believe in the absolute separation of church and state and in the strict enforcement of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof I believe that no tribunal of any church has any power to make any decree of any force in the law of the land, other than to establish the status of its own communicants within its own church.”

“Scholars who become politicians are usually assigned the comic role of having to be the good conscience of state policy.”

States Roles Policy Politician Conscience Comic Scholar

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“In the United States the whites speak well of the Blacks but think bad about them, whereas the Blacks talk bad and think bad aboutthe whites. Whites fear Blacks, because they have a bad conscience, and Blacks hate whites because they need not have a bad conscience.”

Thinking Needs Wells States Hate Speak United United States Racism Conscience

Author:Friedrich Durrenmatt

“A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.”

“The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.”

Source: Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays

“There are nations that resist, voices that attempt to diminish the urgency or dismiss the science, or declare, either in word or indifference, that this is not our problem to solve. Well, let me tell you, it is our problem to solve... To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience.”

Wells States Problem Nations Voice United United States Conscience Let Me Climate Change Including Solve Indifference Diminish Urgency

Author:Paul Martin

“We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.”

Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 8: Letters and State Papers 1782 - 1799

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”

Giving States America United Liberty United States Mankind Policy Example Citizens Conscience Worthy Imitation United States Of America Citizenship Immunity Religious Bigotry

Book:George Washington on religious liberty and mutual understanding: selections from Washington's letters

Source: George Washington on religious liberty and mutual understanding: selections from Washington's letters

“Socialism crushes human rights, builds the state, impinges on the liberty of conscience, and breeds social, cultural, and economic degeneration.”

Humans States Social Liberty Rights Economic Conscience Human Rights Socialism Crush Degeneration

Author:Llewellyn Rockwell

“The individual who dares commit a crime is guilty in a two-fold sense; first, he is guilty against human conscience, and, above all, he is guilty against the State in arrogating to himself one of its most precious privileges.”

Firsts Humans Two States Individual Crime Conscience Privilege Dare Commit Guilty Folds

Book:The Selected Works of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

Source: The Selected Works of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

“Waiving the rights of conscience, not included in the surrender implied by the social state, & more or less invaded by all Religious establishments, the simple question to be decided, is whether a support of the best & purest religion, the Christian religion itself ought not, so far at least as pecuniary means are involved, to be provided for by the Government, rather than be left to the voluntary provisions of those who profess it.”

Mean States Government Christian Left Social Religious Simple Support Rights Ought Involved Conscience Decided Surrender Establishment Provision Implied

Author:James Madison

“The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.”

Men Doe States Nations Church Source Conscience Separation Supreme Church And State Separation Of Church And State Supreme Being Source Of Strength

Author:Lyndon B. Johnson

“You need companies investing in these countries, so women have employment opportunities, and you also need these forces of conscience. Without the activists, in the United States we would still have child labor, we would still have 16-hour days.”

Needs Children Stills Country States Opportunity Force Hours United Company United States Conscience Labor Investing Employment Activist Child Labor Employment Opportunities

Author:Pietra Rivoli

“It is the church's job, as Dr. [Martin Luther] King says, to be the conscience of the state, not the chaplain of the state.”

States Jobs Church Kings Conscience Drs Luther Dr Martin Luther King Chaplains

Author:Shane Claiborne

“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

“We've actually seen Black man murders [in] many a major city in the United States - New York City, St. Louis, Missouri, from Cleveland to Baltimore. It was those sorts of incidents that were very much prevalent in the forefront of that jury's conscience that allowed them to believe that this man [O.J. Simpson] could have been set up.”

Men Believe Has Beens States Black United Cities United States New York Majors Conscience Murder New York City Could Have Been Incidents Jury Baltimore Cleveland Missouri

Author:Sterling K. Brown

“I ask all Americans with a conscience to shun anything and everything to do with the murderous state of Georgia.”

States Asks Conscience Georgia Anything And Everything

Author:Michael Moore

“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)

“Conservative evangelicals don't want government support for our faith, because we believe God created all consciences free and a state-coerced act of worship isn't acceptable to God. Moreover, we believe the gospel isn't in need of state endorsement or assistance. Wall Street may need government bailouts but the Damascus Road never does.”

Want Needs Believe May Doe States Government Politics Support Streets Wall Worship Conscience Conservative Believe In God Acceptable Assistance Endorsements Bailouts

Author:Russell D. Moore

“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.”

“I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity and not to us. It is for them to decide therefore the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves within their own limits.”

People Men Wells Matter States Religious Moral Rights Bears Limits Conscience Constitution Slavery Settling Abortion Civilized Posterity Missouri Religious Rights

Author:Stephen A. Douglas

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.”

“The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreebly to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”

People States Religious Liberty Rights Blessing Conscience Enjoyed Almighty Almighty God

Book:The Writings of George Washington: pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses

Source: The Writings of George Washington: pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.”

“The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as the 18th Century when it was written. One timeless lesson is that if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.”

“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.”

Source: Letters of Mrs. Adams: the wife of John Adams

“The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state.”

Ifs War States Government Action Law Order Principles Morality Authority Conscience Human Rights Committed Criminals Trials Recognition Nuremberg Nuremberg Trials

Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Source: The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

“Dr. King's policy was, if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption. In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”

“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.”

May States Law Voice Tears Cost Highest Conscience Dear Separation Bitter Obedience Torture

Book:The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts

Source: The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts

“I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.”

Humans States Turns Winning Responsibility Lessons Conscience Sense Of Responsibility

Author:Zbigniew Herbert

“Man in his raw, natural state as he comes from the womb is morally and spiritually corrupt in disposition and character. Every part of his being-his mind, his will, his emotions, his affections, his conscience, his body-has been affected by sin (this is what is meant by the doctrine of total depravity)”

Men Mind Has Beens States Character Body Natural Sin Emotion Conscience Affection Doctrine Affected Disposition Womb Depravity

Book:A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith: 2nd Edition - Revised and Updated

Source: A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith: 2nd Edition - Revised and Updated

“It is subversive to set up inquisitions like this, state or national, into the thoughts and consciences of Americans. . . . It is subversive for commissions like this to spread hysteria and intimidation throughout the land that Americans are afraid to sign petitions, afraid to read progressive magazines, afraid to make out checks for liberal causes, afraid to join organizations, afraid to speak their mind on public issues. Americans dare not be free citizens! This is the destruction of democracy.”

“Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.”

Men World States Church Religious Opinion Atheism Conscience Responsible Fellows Separation Presidential Fellow Man Church And State Separation Of Church And State Being Responsible Being Free Separation Between Church And State

Author:John Tyler

“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.”