Conscience Quotes - Page 31

• We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again.

  Samuel Rutherford

  Evil, Down And, Graves

  Samuel Rutherford (1818). “Joshua redivivus, or, three hundred and fifty-two religious letters: to which is added a testimony to the convenanted work of Reformation between 1638 and 1649”, p.273

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• I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.

  Zbigniew Herbert

  Responsibility, Winning, Lessons

  "The Truth of Poetry". Book by Michael Hamburger, 1969.

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• But no man has a monopoly of conscience.

  Mary Augusta Ward

  Men, Monopoly

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• I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned, there was no problem.

  Pol Pot

  People, Revolution, Looks

  "Day of Reckoning". "Far Eastern Economic Review" Magazine, October 1997.

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• Everyone has his own conscience,
  and there should be no rules about
  how a conscience should function.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Wisdom, Should, Function

  Ernest Hemingway, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli (1986). “Conversations with Ernest Hemingway”, p.127, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Looks, Remember, Prisoner

  Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. June 16, 2012.

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• There's a tiredness of abstract inteligence, and it's the most horrible of tirednesses. It doesn't weight on you like the tiredness of the body, nor does it worry you like the tiredness of knowledge and emotion. It's a weightiness of the conscience of the world, an inability of the soul to breathe.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Worry, Soul, Inability

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• I take with me the conscience of defeat as a victory banner.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Victory, Defeat, Banner

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 79, 1982.

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• Dignity is the reward of holding oneself accountable to conscience.

  Wes Fesler

  Accountability, Rewards, Dignity

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• Healing of the world's woes will not come through this or that social or political theory; not through violent changes in government, but in the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart.

  Arthur James Moore

  Healing, Heart, Government

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• Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Gentleman, Pockets, Philanthropy

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.181, University of Georgia Press

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• Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a reasonable motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for that of reason and conscience.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Love, Persistence, Self

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• My first professional acting job was in 'Hair' during the Vietnam War. So I think I've always been drawn to projects with a social conscience.

  Clarke Peters

  Jobs, War, Thinking

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• Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

  Edward Snowden

  Nsa, Citizens, Destroyed

  "Edward Snowden: NSA whistleblower answers reader questions", www.theguardian.com. June 17, 2013.

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• It's an ideal existence. Out in the open. Berating the president of he United States... I'm free to thwart and torment the authorities - that is to say, I can get out my hostilities - because I'm protected in my conscience by the knowledge that what I'm doing is morally right. I've never been so relaxed. I've never been so happy.

  Benjamin Spock

  Men, President, United States

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• Too much preaching nowadays pats the back and tickles the ear, but does not get under the skin. There is no conviction and therefore no conversion. I am thinking not only of the ministry of reproof and rebuke but also of the message of inspiration, of encouragement, of comfort. People go out of church at noon with the depths unstirred, the heart untouched, the conscience unpricked.

  Vance Havner

  Christian, Encouragement, Inspiration

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• The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you.

  Criss Jami

  People, Perception, Mind

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.117, Criss Jami

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• The photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by their captors, and the reports of acts of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other acts of maltreatment shock the conscience.

  Ed Markey

  Abuse, Photograph, Treatment

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• Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Atheism, Citizens

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.147

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• Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Real, Years

  "Make your hearts firm". Pope Francis' message for Lent 2015 from the Vatican, w2.vatican.va. October 4, 2014.

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• Even the wisest of mankind cannot live by reason alone; pure arrogant reason, denying the claims of prejudice (which commonly are also the claims of conscience), leads to a wasteland of withered hopes and crying loneliness, empty of God and man: the wilderness in which Satan tempted Christ was not more dreadful than the arid expanse of intellectual vanity deprived of tradition and intuition, where modern man is tempted by his own pride.

  Russell Kirk

  Loneliness, Pride, Men

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.41, Regnery Publishing

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• As a myth of national purpose and as a program for individual conduct, the simple life has, in a sense, served as the nation's conscience, reminding Americans of what the founders had hoped they would be and thereby providing a vivifying counterpoint to the excesses of materialist individualism.

  David Shi

  Simple, Would Be, Purpose

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• We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Character, Ideas, Two

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• Virtuosi have been long remarked to have little conscience in their favorite pursuits. A man will steal a rarity who would cut off his hand rather than take the money it is worth. Yet, in fact, the crime is the same.

  Horace

  Cutting, Men, Hands

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• There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Congratulations, Giving, Doe

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.173, Courier Corporation

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