Quotes About Conscience

There are those who are so scrupulously afraid of doing wrong that they seldom venture to do anything.

I follow my conscience - and this is upsetting to some people, but I maintain the conscience is going to be the only thing between us and communication in the future.

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.

Women have a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed.

I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.

The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation --must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.

Nadie protege la moral de manera más estricta que el propio infractor furtivo, pues éste tiene claro que la humanidad naufragaría si todos los seres humanos tuviesen la posibilidad de vivir como él.

Drunkenness was a communal and personal pleasure at once, a miserable state only to those not drinking. Sobriety to him was a cruel attack of conscience masking itself as awareness. If sober people were so aware, how come they only spoke truth when drunk? Give him the romance of a drunkard over the indignation of a teetotaler any day.

And that's all this Prime Minister needed, a nice multi-syllable word like destabilization to turn it into a fucking jingle. But he threw us on the defensive in a way that I'll make sure never happens again. Of course the only people listening was Penthouse magazine. Goddamn, what does it mean when the conscience of America airbrushes pussy for a living?

Wine often makes people say things, do things without the distraction of a conscience.

We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we will not obey your evil laws. We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

Warren Buffett advised that before you take any morally questionable action, you should ask yourself if you would want your mother to read about it in the newspaper.

If courage is acting according to one's conscience despite pain or fear, then strength is the ability to keep conscience awake and in force despite the demands of authorities to do otherwise.

Unless under the spell of a psychotic delusion, extreme rage, inescapable deprivation, drugs, or a destructive authority figure, a person who is conscience-bound does not—in some sense he cannot—kill or rape in cold blood, torture another person, steal someone's life savings, trick someone into a loveless relationship as sport, or willfully abandon his own child. Could you?

Conscience is the window of our spirit, evil is the curtain. —Doug Horton

Imagine—if you can—not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.

Understanding sociopathy can teach us that, at those times when we focus only on ourselves and our group and ignore our intrinsic ties to others—when we turn a blind eye to the importance of everyone's well-being—even those of us who do have conscience begin to lose our way, and the shadow of evil looms closer. Goodness lies in sensing our bonds with others; evil happens when, for whatever reasons, those feelings are numbed.

There is simply no known way to create a conscience in an individual who does not have one.

Surprisingly, even twenty-first-century society relies rather heavily on the honor system, and when we encounter an individual who simply is not bound by honor, conscience, or connection, we may find ourselves in big trouble.

A substantial proportion of people will do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority." Milgram believed that authority could put conscience to sleep because the obedient person makes an "adjustment of thought," which is to see himself as not responsible for his own actions.

Albert Einstein once said, "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

I would like to suggest that the overriding belief systems of certain cultures encourage born sociopaths to compensate cognitively for what they are missing emotionally. In contrast with our extreme emphasis on individualism and personal control, certain cultures, many in East Asia, dwell theologically on the interrelatedness of all living things. Interestingly, this value is also the basis of conscience, which is an intervening sense of obligation rooted in a sense of connectedness.

and for every limitation conscience imposes on us, it gives us a moment of connectedness with an other, a bridge to someone or something outside of our often meaningless schemes.

A part of a healthy conscience is being able to confront consciencelessness. When you teach your daughter, explicitly or by passive rejection, that she must ignore her outrage, that she must be kind and accepting to the point of not defending herself or other people, that she must not rock the boat for any reason, you are NOT strengthening her prosocial sense, you are damaging it--and the first person she will stop protecting is herself.