Conscience Quotes

Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods,
Oh! ’tis a dreadful interval of time,
Filled up with horror all, and big with death!
- Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act I, scene 3.

O dignitosa coscienza e netta,
Come t’ è picciol fallo amaro morso.
- O faithful conscience, delicately pure, how doth a little failing wound thee sore!
- Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio (1321), III. 8.

Se tosto grazia risolva le schiume
Di vostra conscienza, si che chiaro
Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.
- So may heaven’s grace clear away the foam from the conscience, that the river of thy thoughts may roll limpid thenceforth.
- Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio (1321), XIII. 88.

A bad conscience does not necessarily signify a bad character.
- Hannah Arendt (1994), cited in: Duco A. Schreuder. Vision and Visual Perception, 2014, p. 148.

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
- Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre (1847), Helen Burns in Ch. 8.

Sin in the conscience, is like Jonah in a ship, which causeth such a tempest, that the conscience is like a troubled sea, whose waters cannot rest, or it is like a mote in the eye, which causeth a perpetual trouble while it is there.
- Thomas Brooks in A Cabinet of Jewels (1669) from Works of Thomas Brooks, Vol. 3, Nichol’s Series of Standard Divines, Puritan Period, with General Preface by John C. Miller, D.D.; Rev. Thomas Smith, General Editor, Edinburgh, James Nichol, 1866. pg.295.

They have cheveril consciences that will stretch.
- Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Pt III, Section IV. Memb. 2. Subsect. 3.

Why should not Conscience have vacation
As well as other Courts o’ th’ nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and return?
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto II, line 317.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
- Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 83.

But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.
- Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 167.

My idea, mamma, is that all our trouble is because there is so little conscience in people. I see through things, mamma, and I understand. If a man has a stolen shirt I see it. A man sits in a tavern and you fancy he is drinking tea and no more, but to me the tea is neither here nor there; I see further, he has no conscience. You can go about the whole day and not meet one man with a conscience. And the whole reason is that they don’t know whether there is a God or not.
- Anton Chekhov, “In the Ravine”, (1900) ch. 4, pp. 199-200

The range of a fine conscience covers more good and evil than the range of conscience which may be called, roughly, not fine; a conscience, less troubled by the nice discrimination of shades of conduct. A fine conscience is more concerned with essentials; its triumphs are more perfect, if less profitable, in a worldly sense.
- Joseph Conrad in Henry James — An Appreciation (1905).

The still small voice is wanted.
- William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book V, line 687.

His mind was destitute of that dread which has been erroneously decried as if it were nothing higher than a man’s animal care for his own skin: that awe of the Divine Nemesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it took a more positive form under Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind simply as a vague fear at anything which is called wrong-doing. Such terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it will annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations which can never be proved to have any sanctity in the abscnce of feeling.
- George Eliot in Romola (1863) in Chapter XI.

God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist.
- Mahatma Gandhi, “God is All Things to All Men,” in Hinduism According to Gandhi: Thoughts, Writings and Critical Interpretation (2013), p. 75.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength to prevent, it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
- Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Chapter XIII.

The Ten Commandments have lost their validity. Conscience is a Jewish invention, it is a blemish like circumcision.
- Adolf Hitler Rauschning, in Hitler Speaks, p. 220

Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortification of a false vision called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and independence which only a very few can bear.
- Adolf Hitler Rauschning, in Hitler Speaks, p. 222

Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man’s conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the judgement, so also the conscience may be erroneous.
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651).

The relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience.
- Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847), as translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (1995), p. 143.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challenge facing modern man.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” (31 March 1968).

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
- C. S. Lewis, in “God in the Dock” (1948).

He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
- John Milton, Comus (1634), lines 381-385.

Now conscience wakes despair
That slumber’d, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue!
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 23.

O Conscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driven me, out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book X, line 842.

Let his tormentor conscience find him out.
- John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book IV, line 130.

A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.
- Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living, 1938-01-26

I am confident that if a man surrenders his conscience to his idea of community, or to his Fuhrer, it doesn’t must matter whether he calls himself Communist or Fascist- he has foresworn the element in himself which alone can keep society human. And for want of that element, society must and will inevitably grow more and more barbarous. You can see it happening.
- Max Plowman Peace News, February 5th, 1938. Reprinted in “Ten Years Ago”, Peace News, No. 606. February 6th, 1948 (p.4).

As the saints and prophets were often forced to practise long vigils and fastings and prayers before their ecstasies would fall upon them and their visions would appear, so Virtue in its purest and most exalted form can only be acquired by means of severe and long continued culture of the mind. Persons with feeble and untrained intellects may live according to their conscience; but the conscience itself will be defective. … To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall.
- William Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (1872), p. 540.

The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Hamlet in Act II, scene II.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 1, line 83. (“Away,” not “awry” in folio).

They are our outward consciences.
- William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act IV, scene 1, line 8.

Now, if you can blush and cry, “guilty,” cardinal,
You’ll show a little honesty.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act III, scene 2, line 306.

I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities;
A still and quiet conscience.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act III, scene 2, line 377.

Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 2, line 19.

Well, my conscience says, “Launcelot, budge not.” “Budge,” says the fiend: “budge not,” says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “you counsel well.” “Fiend,” say I, “you counsel well.”
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 2.

I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
- William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act V, scene 6, line 40.

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 3, line 222.

‘Tis a blushing shamefast spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom; it fills one full of obstacles.
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 4, line 141.

Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 179.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 193.

Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe;
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), King Richard, Act V, scene 3, line 309.

I know thou art religious,
And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies,
Which I have seen thee careful to observe.
- William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (c. 1584-1590), Act V, scene 1, line 75.

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.
- This has also been paraphrased as: Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.
George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Trust that man in nothing who has not a Conscience in everything.
- Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767), Book II, Chapter XVII.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849).

How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.
- Kenneth Tynan, review of Le Misanthrope, by Molière, at the Piccadilly (1962), from Tynan Right and Left (1967), p. 117.

Conscience is a man’s compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one’s course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.
- Vincent van Gogh, as quoted in Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh (1995) edited by Irving Stone and Jean Stone, p. 181.

The light of conscience … enters the eyes of the soul, as the light of the sun enters the eyes of the body; and to open the former requires no greater effort than to open the latter.
- Alexandre Vinet, Evangelical Meditations (1858).

A minority may do for a society what the conscience does for an individual.
- John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom (1984), p. 99.

And I know of the future judgment
How dreadful so’er it be
That to sit alone with my conscience
Would be judgment enough for me.
- Charles William Stubbs, Alone with my conscience.

There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self condemn’d
He deals on his own soul.
- Lord Byron, Manfred, Act III, scene 1.

Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain’s silence, and o’er Glory’s din;
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.
- Lord Byron, The Island, Canto I, Stanza 6.

The Past lives o’er again
In its effects, and to the guilty spirit
The ever-frowning Present is its image.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Remorse, Act I, scene 2.

Oh, Conscience! Conscience! man’s most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend;
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! woe for me, his deadliest foe!
- George Crabbe, Struggles of Conscience, last lines.

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust,
Die eine will sich von der andern trennen.
- Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, and each withdraws from and repels its brother.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 2. 307.

Hic murus aeneus esto,
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.
- Be this thy brazen bulwark, to keep a clear conscience, and never turn pale with guilt.
- Horace, Epistles, I. 1. 60.

A cleere conscience is a sure carde.
- John Lyly, Euphues, p. 207. Arbor’s reprint (1579).

Whom conscience, ne’er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter V. Of Conscience.

Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo.
- According to the state of a man’s conscience, so do hope and fear on account of his deeds arise in his mind.
- Ovid, Fasti, I. 485.

One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 255.

True, conscious Honour is to feel no sin,
He’s arm’d without that’s innocent within;
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of Brass.
- Alexander Pope, First Book of Horace, Epistle I, line 93.

Some scruple rose, but thus he eas’d his thought,
“I’ll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I’ll now go twice—
And am so clear too of all other vice.”
- Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 365.

Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,
And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,
Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
- Alexander Pope, To Mrs. M. B., on her Birthday.

What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me more than Hell to shun,
That more than Heav’n pursue.
- Alexander Pope, Universal Prayer.

Sic vive cum hominibus, tanquem deus videat; sic loquere cum deo, tanquam homines audiant.
- Live with men as if God saw you; converse with God as if men heard you.
- Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, X.

La conscience des mourants calomnie leur vie.
- The conscience of the dying belies their life.
- Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Réflexions, CXXXVI.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.
- George Washington, Moral Maxims, Virtue and Vice, Conscience.

Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach.
- William Wordsworth, The Old Cumberland Beggar, line 136.

A good conscience is the palace of Christ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the paradise of delight; the standing Sabbath of the saints.
- Augustine of Hippo, p. 157.

Be fearful only of thyself, and stand in awe of none more than thine own conscience.
- Robert Burton, p. 157.

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
- John Calvin, p. 157.

Conscience is God’s vicegerent in the soul.
- David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, p. 156.

Every one of us, whatever his speculative opinions, knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys.
- James Anthony Froude, p. 156.

An old historian says about the Roman armies that marched through a country, burning and destroying every living thing, “They make a solitude, and they call it peace.” And so men do with their consciences. They stifle them, sear them, forcibly silence them, somehow or other; and then, when there is a dead stillness in the heart, broken by no voice of either approbation or blame, but doleful, like the unnatural quiet of a deserted city, then they say, “It is peace;” and the man’s uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit! You may almost attain to that.
- Alexander Maclaren, p. 158.

We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.
- Blaise Pascal, p. 157.

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, p. 156.

Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
- Samuel Smiles, p. 156.

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.
- Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, p. 157.

Trust that man in nothing, who has not a conscience in every thing.
- Laurence Sterne, p. 157.

There is in man a conscience which outlives the sensations, resolutions, and emotions of the hour, and rises above them all.
- Edward Thompson, p. 157.