Quotes About Conscience

There has never been a time in my life when I felt that I could take a gun and shoot down a fellow-being. In this respect I am a Quaker.

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

People with no human values are worse than zombies.

By disobeying immoral orders, that individual preserves the institution's highest rank - dignity.

We have a responsibility to disobey and violate unjust rules and laws.

Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.

I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

El deber y el crimen jamás pueden coincidir en una misma cosa.

We are passing through an unheroic phase of history when the man who has escaped passive conformism and follows the voice of his own conscience is a hero.

When you do what you know is right,' Father explained, 'you find a dignity in yourself that makes you a happy person.

He that's ungrateful, has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.

Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?

My conscience was pricked by the happiness of being loved. Or perhaps I was craving some still more decisive unhappiness.

Los japoneses a diferencia de los americanos, no sufren conflictos interiores por causa de una severa conciencia puritana, pero sí muestran sus neurosis provocadas por el particular sistema de vida en las ciudades.

Other people are all witnesses. If no other people exists, shame would never be born in the world.

Once passion was set in motion according to its own laws, then it was irresistible. This was a theory that would never be accepted by modern law, which took it as self-evident that conscience and reason ruled man.

In this situation however, I have to wonder...which of us is the sinner?

We aren't born with a ready-made conscience. As we pass through life, we hurt people and people hurt us, we act compassionately and others show compassion to us. if we pay attention, our moral sensitivity sharpens and these experiences become a source of valuable ethical knowledge about what is good, what is right and who I really am.

I have a little different definition of evil than most people. When you have the opportunity and the ability to do good and you do nothing, that's evil. Evil doesn't always have to be an overt act, it can be merely the absence of good.

Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing. At Abu Ghraib, one photo shows two soldiers smiling before a pyramid of naked prisoners while a dozen other soldiers stand around watching passively. If you observe such abuses and don't say, "This is wrong! Stop it!" you give tacit approval to continue. You are part of the silent majority that makes evil deeds more acceptable.

Happiness is there when you are morally clear to yourself.

Depravity feeds on depravity, and with no sense right and wrong, there is nothing for them to hold on to.

Guilt is a feeble emotion. It surrenders too easily

If you only behave because an invisible man in the sky is watching, then you don't own your own moral structure. Your moral framework is based outside yourself, separate from your reasoning.