quotes, quotations and passages on conscience

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

George Washington

The ultimate test of a person's conscience may be his or her willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard. Gaylord Nelson

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

The only master that exists, the only one that's true and believable is your own conscience. To find it you have to stand in silence--alone and in silence--you have to stand on the naked earth, naked yourself and with nothing around you, as if you were already dead. You don't hear anything at first; the only thing you feel is terror, but then you begin to hear a voice, away in the background, far off; it's a calm voice, and maybe its banality gets on your nerves to begin with. Susanna Tamaro A clean and sensitive conscience, a steady and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as large, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual. Henry van Dyke

Conscience, as I understand it, is the impulse to do the right thing because it is right, regardless of personal ends, and has nothing to do with the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Margaret Collier Graham

Conscience is that still, small voice
that is sometimes too loud for comfort.

Bert Murray

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Conscience is God's presence in humans.

Emanuel Swedenborg

It is not because people's desires are strong that they
act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
There is no natural connection between strong impulses and
a weak conscience. The natural connection is the other way.

John Stuart Mill

Conscience is the root of all free courage;
if we would be brave, let us obey our conscience.

James F. Clark

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.

French Proverb

Reason deceives us; conscience, never.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act,
leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone
with his or her conscience and get its approval, without knowing
force or specious knowledge, then he or she begins to know
what real happiness is.

William G. Jordan

Our influence is like a shadow; it may fall even where we think we've never been.
We also need to realize there are no "time-outs" or "vacations" we can take
in keeping the Lord's commandments or being true to our conscience.
Stay on track with what you know is right!

unattributed

If you compromise with your own conscience, you will weaken your
conscience. Soon your conscience will fail to guide you and you will
never have real wealth based on peace of mind.

Napoleon Hill

The needle of our conscience is as good a compass as any.

Ruth Wolff

Peace of mind just can't be bought.
Trust me: Even if your conscience
doesn't stop you from playing dirty
to get what you want, once you get
it, it will keep you from enjoying it.
As my mother used to say, "A good
conscience is God's eye." Which is
why I always prefer a loss to
an underhanded gain; the one
brings pain at the moment,
the other for all time.

Patti LaBelle

Conscience sometimes speaks with the voice of
society, sometimes with the voice of the heart.
Deep in ourselves we always know the difference.

Jeanne Tardiveau

Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a
particular wish operating within us.

Sigmund Freud

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

Harper Lee

If you are honest with yourself, conscience will make known your character.

Edward Payson

Conscience is the voice of the soul, as passions are the voice of the body. No wonder they contradict each other.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The paradoxical--and tragic--situation of people is that our conscience is weakest when we need it the most.

Erich Fromm

God leaves to our conscience the choice of the road we decide to follow, and the liberty of yielding to one or another of the opposing influences that act upon us.

Allan Kardec

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To me, the essence of keeping the soul nourished is obedience to one's
conscience. I don't think that the soul can be nourished unless people
have a strong sense of conscience that they have educated and
developed and soaked in the universal and timeless principles of integrity
and service. This way, the individual's soul becomes part of the universal
soul of service, contribution, and making a difference.

Stephen R. Covey

Lives are changed by a moment's listening to conscience,
by a single and quiet inclination of the mind.

George A. Smith

The world does not stand or fall with discoveries or inventions,
nor with the trample of armed hosts and the thunder of
bombing planes. The world stands or falls with the laws of life
which Heaven has written in the human conscience.

Pierre Van Paasen

Conscience is the most perfect mirror ever made--
the one looking glass that cannot be broken.

Fred van Amburgh

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 Necker

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves
constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all
the calamities and afflictions which can befall us without.

Joseph Addison

There is always a voice saying the right thing to you somewhere,
if you'll only listen for it.

Thomas Hughes

There is a difference between those who do no misdeeds because of
their own conscience and those who are kept from wrongdoing
because of the presence of others.

The Talmud

Conscience is called the adversary, because it always opposes
our evil will; it reminds us of what we ought to do but do not,
and condemns us if we do something we ought not.

Abba Dorotheus

Cowardice asks, Is it safe? Expediency asks, Is it politic?
Vanity asks, Is it popular? but Conscience asks, Is it right?

Alexander Punshon

When conscience is our friend, all is peace; but if
once offended, farewell to the tranquil mind.

Mary W. Montagu

A disciplined conscience is a person's best friend. It may not be
the most amiable, but it is the most faithful monitor.

Austin Phelps