Quotes About Conscience

The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe: Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.

A little water clears us of this deed.

If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.

Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: 'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more,—Macbeth shall sleep no more!

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; Murder, stern murder in the dir'st degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty!, guilty!

Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.

To do a great right do a little wrong, And curb this cruel devil of his will.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?

Don't judge a man's conscience by looking at his face cause he may have a bad heart.

Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience.

Though in the trade of war I have slain men, Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.

Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition

O shame! where is thy blush?

How stand I, then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth! He exits.

To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation

What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood, is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense? And what's in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestalled ere we come to fall, or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up. My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer can serve my tern? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?

Put plainly, there is a natural moral law, existing in reality, i.e., not invented by man, which transcends and trumps our desires. Something is right or wrong, whether we like it or not.

When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors

What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?