Quotes About Conscience

He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.

What pillow can one have like a good conscience?

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?

Here is individual responsibility and the invention of conscience. You can if you will but it is up to you. This little story(from the Bible)turns out to be one of the most profound in the world. I always felt it was,but now I know it is.

There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish.

No matter how weak and negative a good man is, he has as many sins on him as he can bear.

To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and to a monster the norm is monstrous.

in him kindness and conscience are so large that they are almost faults.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have.

I wanted to go to the rooftree of Maine to start my trip before turning west. It seemed to give the journey a design, and everything in the world must have design or the human mind rejects it. But in addition it must have purpose or the human conscience shies away from it. Maine

When you know a friend is there you do not go to see him. Then he's gone and you blast your conscience to shreds that you did not see him.

When he first got the job with Kate, Joe looked for the weaknesses on which he lived—vanity, voluptuousness, anxiety or conscience, greed, hysteria. He knew they were there because she was a woman.

To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous.

She liked the idea so well that she felt there must be something bordering on sin involved in it.

No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.

I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin.

devil. And this was a shame, for Samuel was a laughing man, but I guess Samuel was wide open to the devil.

A chi è nato senza coscienza, l'uomo che ne è afflitto deve apparire ridicolo. Per un criminale l'onestà è stupida. Non dobbiamo dimenticare che il mostro non è che una deviazione, e che per un mostro la normalità è mostruosa.

I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin, said John, and he looked at the long wrapped body. p. 241

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

On the radio, I heard someone define ethics as "obedience to the unenforceable.