“Duty is duty, conscience is conscience, right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatever sized type they may be printed in. " Large" or "small" are not words for the vocabulary of conscience.”

—  Alexander Maclaren

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 389.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Duty is duty, conscience is conscience, right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatever sized type they may be printed in.…" by Alexander Maclaren?
Alexander Maclaren photo
Alexander Maclaren75
British minister 1826–1910

Related quotes

Halldór Laxness photo

“A man's conscience is an unsteady judge of right and wrong.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Arnas Arnæus
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Michael J. Sandel photo

“Freedom of conscience and freedom of choice are not the same; where conscience dictates, choice decides. Where freedom of conscience is at stake, the relevant right is to perform a duty, not to make a choice. This was the issue for Madison and Jefferson. Religious liberty addressed the problem of encumbered selves, claimed by duties they cannot renounce, even in the face of civil obligations that may conflict.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 3. Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Franz Stangl photo

“My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty…”

Franz Stangl (1908–1971) Austrian-born SS officer, commandant at first Sobibór extermination camp and then Treblinka extermination c…

Quoted in "The Bormann Brotherhood" - Page 182 - by William Stevenson - 1973.

“Ethics is the science of duties, and it's principles, perceived by reason, and revealed to us by conscience.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Essai sur la théorie de l'économie politique et de ses rapports avec la morale et le droit. (1867). Quoted by Teotonio R. de Souza in Indo-Portuguese history (1985), p. 210
Essai sur la théorie de l'économie politique et de ses rapports avec la morale et le droit (1867)

Zafar Mirzo photo

“Disclosure and realization of potential are not only the basis of human happiness but also a duty to conscience and society.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Will Cuppy photo

“If the Pilgrims were looking for freedom of conscience, they came to just the right place. In America, everybody's conscience is unusually free.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Miles Standish

William Godwin photo

“The political freedom of conscience and of the press, so far from being as it is commonly supposed an extension, is a new case of the limitation of rights and discretion. Conscience and the press ought to be unrestrained, not because men have a right to deviate from the exact line that duty prescribes, but because society, the aggregate of individuals, has no right to assume the prerogative of an infallible judge, and to undertake authoritatively to prescribe to its members in matters of pure speculation.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Principles of Society, The Rights of Man
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is taste. With the intellect or with the conscience, it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with duty or with truth.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

Martin Luther photo

“It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Related topics