Quotes About Conscience

Sir, I had rather be right than to be President.

Ibn Arabi observes that the most perfect of mystic lovers are those who love God simultaneously for himself and for them- selves, because this capacity reveals in them the unification of their twofold nature (a resolution of the torn "conscience malheureuse" ). He who has made himself capable of such love is able to do so because he combines mystic knowledge ( ma rrifa ) with vision ( shuhud) .

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

a good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself, which the neglect of legislators hath forgotten to supply.

A person's conscience will object and accuse when an action may be harmful to themselves and others.

The conscience is the innate mechanism God created in human nature to sound an inner alarm in an attempt to prevent people from taking harmful actions.

When a person's conscience alerts them to an offense that is causing a rift in a relationship, it is important to attempt to reconcile quickly with the offended person.

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

He knew how to win votes and he knew what to do with himself when the votes were won. He held the confidence of his constituency. His was a constantly growing popularity. He could do everything but one,--he could not dishonor his conscience. His belief that "slavery was founded on injustice" was the only reason for his protest. He never hesitated to protest against injustice. The Golden Rule had a place in practical politics. The Sermon on the Mount was not an iridescent dream.

To me there is not only right or wrong but many shades in between...The real tragedies in life are not in choices between right and wrong. Only the most callous of persons choose what they know to be wrong. Real tragedy comes [illegible] in a dilemma of evaluating what is right...Real dilemmas are difficulties of the soul, provoking agonies, which you in your world of black and white can't even begin to comprehend.

If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.

I am lost in admiration of the honest and courageous men amongst you who have resisted all threats as well as all bribes, and persevered in giving me their free unbought voices. For those unhappy persons who have been scared by imminent fear on their own and their children's behalf from obeying the impulse of their conscience, I feel nothing of resentment--nothing but pity and compassion.

Conscience is the tongue of Heaven.

Lafayette had a powerful insight, detecting in slaveholders a combination of "prejudices, Habits, and Calculations."26 This combination acted as their engine, in place of a conscience. Racism ratified their power, as did the dispensations of Providence. They were precursors of the Ayn Rand protagonist of the twentieth century.

And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize the duty of what is called allegiance.

The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.

At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.

Reason is often the slave of sin; it strives to justify it.

Here it is. Let's say you're married, you love your wife, but you're attracted by another woman.' 'Excuse me, but I absolutely cannot understand how after eating my fill here I could go past a bakery and steal a roll.

I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgements must be based on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.