“Conscience makes egotists of us all.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
“The Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.”
"A Note on George the Fourth," http://books.google.com/books?id=NA0HAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+NonConformist+Conscience+makes+cowards+of+us+all%22&pg=PA250#v=onepage The Yellow Book (October 1894)
"King George the Fourth," http://books.google.com/books?id=OvlGAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+Nonconformist+Conscience+makes+cowards+of+us+all%22&pg=PA63#v=onepage The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896)
Edward A Freeman The History of the Norman Conquest of England Vol. 5 (1876) p. 579.
Criticism
“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”
Source: The Complete Persepolis
A Christian Manifesto (1982)
Context: His death there on Calvary's cross is for us individually, but it's not egotistically individualistic. Our individual salvation will one day be a portion of the restoration of all things. It is our calling until He comes back again that happy day, to do all we can — while it won't be perfect as when He comes back — to see substantial healing in every area that He will then perfectly heal, and that Wesley did understand.
University of Havana address (2005)
Context: Man is born egotistical, a result of the conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues. Nature makes us do things instinctively; one of these is the instinct for survival which can lead to infamy, while on the other side, our conscience can lead us to great acts of heroism. It doesn’t matter what each one of us is like, how different we are from each other, but when we unite we become one.
It is amazing that in spite of the differences between human beings, they can become as one in a single instant or they can be millions, and they can be a million strong just through their ideas. Nobody followed the Revolution as a cult to anyone or because they felt personal sympathy with any one person. It is only by embracing certain values and ideas that an entire people can develop the same willingness to make sacrifices of any one of those who loyally and sincerely try to lead them toward their destiny.
If you start an argument with yourself, that makes two people at least, and when you have two people, one of them starts appeasing the other.
"Epistle from Mother Carey's Chicken"
Peter quotes 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all' from the 'To be, or not to be' speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1.
Birds of America (1971)
Section 4, member 2, subsection 3, Causes of Despair, the Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Rigid Ministers, Misunderstanding Scriptures, Guilty Consciences, etc.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 182