Quotes about Conscience

Better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against my conscience. —

Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

Of two evils, choose neither.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him.

Suppose for example, that he lacks outward comforts, good cheer and feasting, a good conscience in a continual feast; so he can make up the lack of a feast by the peace that he has in his own conscience. If he lacks melody in the world, he has a bird within him that sings the most melodious songs in the world, and the most delightful. And then does he lack honor? He has his own conscience witnessing for him, that is as a thousand witnesses.

Being against evil doesn't make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide... I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting.

I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.

You're going to have things to repent, boy," Mr. John had told Nick. "That's one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.

You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch. Yes. It's sort of what we have instead of God. Some people have God, I said. Quite a lot. He never worked very well with me.

It is not enough to recognize what is right and true. One must control the impulse to do what is wrong and easy.

Do you know why people are prone to make such foolish moral decisions? Because something always whispers to us that our situations are unique: Nobody has ever felt this way before.