“When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.”
Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist
Quoted in "Words of Wisdom" - by Mick Farren - Philosophy - 2004 - Page 122
2000s, 2004
Maxim 237
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
“When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.”
Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist
Quoted in "Words of Wisdom" - by Mick Farren - Philosophy - 2004 - Page 122
2000s, 2004
Leonid Feodorov (1879–1935) Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church
Captain Francis McCullagh, "The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity," Dutton and Company, 1924, page 192.
Adressing the court during his political show trial in 1923.
“In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India
Young India (4 August 1920)
1920s
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2, Verse 19
“Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: There is a constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher than any constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.”
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book I, Ch. 22. Of Custom
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Consciences keep silence more often than they should, that's why laws were created.”
José Saramago book All the Names
The Registrar
All the Names (1997)
Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)