Conscience Quotes - Page 8

• The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

  Madame de Stael

  Mistake, Voice, Political

  "Germany". Book by Madame de Stael, 1813.

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• Today social justice represents one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of the world. The abyss between those who are within the world 'order' and those who are excluded is widening day by day. The use of leading-edge technologies has made it possible to accumulate wealth in a way that is fantastic but perverse because it is unjustly distributed. Twenty-percent of humankind control eighty percent of all means of life. That fact creates a dangerous imbalance in the movement of history.

  Leonardo Boff

  Mean, Technology, Order

  Leonardo Boff (2001). “The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today”, p.43, Orbis Books

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• The Interfaith Alliance has to become an ongoing sustaining and powerful movement whose interest is to prove that religion has a healing side as well as a killing side, and that democracy is the consequence of conscience

  Bill Moyers

  God, Powerful, Healing

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• ... we believe in the vocation of communion and participation of our people, who day to day awaken to their political conscience and express their desire for change and profound democratization of society. A change based on justice, built with love, and which will bring us the most anxiously desired fruits of peace.

  Adolfo Perez Esquivel

  Believe, People, Profound

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• To assert that it is possible to establish peace between men of different nations is simply to assert that man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two forces within the individual contribute to the development of his conscience and of his morality: reason and sensitivity.

  Leon Bourgeois

  Religious, Philosophy, Men

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• But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow.

  Mark Twain

  Dog, Integrity, Differences

  1884 Huck.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch.33.

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• A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Party, Men

  Mark Twain (2004). “The Letters of Mark Twain”, p.238, 1st World Publishing

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• I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.

  Bernard Cornwell

  Book, Married, Clear

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• An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.

  Mark Twain

  Hair, Mouths, Uneasy

  Mark Twain (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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• A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.

  O. Henry

  Bores You, Mosquitoes, Stories

  O. Henry (2006). “Selected Stories”, p.346, Penguin

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• The exploitation of women, mass hunger, disregard for freedom of conscience and for freedom of speech, widespread and racial discrimination all these evils are far too prevalent to be overlooked.

  Rene Cassin

  Racism, Evil, Freedom Of Speech

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• Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Incessant, Loud, Strokes

  Michel de Montaigne (1850). “Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.193

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• According to the state of a man's conscience, so do hope and fear on account of his deeds arise in his mind.

  Ovid

  Men, Mind, Deeds

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• So may heaven's grace clear away the foam from the conscience, that the river of thy thoughts may roll limpid thenceforth.

  Dante Alighieri

  Rivers, Heaven, Grace

  "Purgatorio (Divine Comedy, Book 2)". Book by Dante Alighieri (Canto XIII), 1321.

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• It is quite certain that, if from childhood men were to begin to follow the first intimations of conscience, honestly to obey them and carry them out into act, the power of conscience would be so strengthened and improved within them, that it would soon become, what it evidently is intended to be, "a connecting principle between the creature and the Creator."

  John Campbell Shairp

  Men, Childhood, Principles

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 156), 1895.

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• Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Holy, Should

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• I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

  Lillian Hellman

  Fashion, Peace, Integrity

  Letter to John S. Wood, 19 May 1952.

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• There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Time

  "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech in Washington, D.C., kinginstitute.stanford.edu. March 31, 1968.

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• Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

  Josh Billings

  Wise, Mistake, Doe

  Josh Billings (1913). “Wit and Wisdom of Josh Billings [pseud.]: Choice Bits of Fun and Philosophy of the Great Humorist Carefully Collected and Revised”

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• What kind of plan B?" Hale asked. He was almost holding his breath when a voice answered, "My kind." Macey tried to read the look on his face then, but it was gone in a flash. It had been a simple moment of peace and joy and pure happiness. That voice made Hale happy. It kept him calm. It was his backup and his conscience. Macey couldn't help herself, she envied him.

  Ally Carter

  Simple, Voice, Joy

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• Out of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes told us that he very often did.

  Frances Perkins

  Eye, Men, Ethical Principles

  Frances Perkins (1934). “People at work”

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• Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.

  Stephen Covey

  Change, Encouragement, Freedom

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• 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

  Thomas Paine

  Strength, Being Strong, Perseverance

  Thomas Paine, John P. Kaminski (2002). “Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion”, p.44, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

  George Washington

  Integrity, 4th Of July, Fire

  Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour. Sparks 'Life of Washington' (1839) vol. 2, p. 109

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• Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Medicine, Moral

  Mark Twain (1973). “What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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