“To him, the one Absolute Conscience, in every moral disaster our conscience turns for assured refuge and certain renewal of moral courage and strength. That is the real act and infallible function of Prayer.”
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.403
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George Holmes Howison135
American philosopher 1834–1916Related quotes
Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar
Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), pp. 25-26
Theodore Parker (1810–1860) abolitionist
Ten Sermons of Religion (1853), III : Of Justice and the Conscience https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Sermons_of_Religion/Of_Justice_and_the_Conscience <br class="br">Context: The facts of man's history do not fully represent the faculties of his nature as the history of matter represents the qualities of matter. Man, though finite, is indefinitely progressive, continually unfolding the qualities of his nature; his history, therefore, is not the whole book of man, but only the portion thereof which has been opened and publicly read. So the history of man never completely represents his nature; and a law derived merely from the facts of observation by no means describes the normal rule of action which belongs to his nature. The laws of matter are known to us because they are kept; there the ideal and actual are the same; but man has in his nature a rule of conduct higher than what he has come up to, — an ideal of nature which shames his actual of history. Observation and reflection only give us the actual of morals; conscience, by gradual and successive intuition, presents us the ideal of morals.
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: Don’t change the white man’s mind—you can’t change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America’s conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. They don’t know what morals are. They don’t try and eliminate an evil because it’s evil, or because it’s illegal, or because it’s immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you’re wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he’d straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man’s mind.
Cui Weiping (1956) Chinese film critic
自发而美好的思想感情 ——为谭作人先生呼吁 (11 April 2009) http://www.cuiweiping.net/blogs/cuiweiping/archives/133594.aspx
Harold M. Schulweis (1925–2014) American rabbi and theologian
Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey (2008)
“The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience."”
Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician
It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.
Address at Ipswich Centennial (1834).
“There is no level of moral achievement upon which man can have or actually has an easy conscience.”
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
vol. 1, p. 131
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
Theodore Parker (1810–1860) abolitionist
Ten Sermons of Religion (1853), III : Of Justice and the Conscience https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Sermons_of_Religion/Of_Justice_and_the_Conscience <br class="br">Context: Man naturally loves justice, for its own sake, as the natural object of his conscience. As the mind loves truth and beauty, so conscience loves the right; it is true and beautiful to the moral faculties. Conscience rests in justice as an end, as the mind in truth. As truth is the side of God turned towards the intellect, so is justice the side of Him which conscience looks upon. Love of justice is the moral part of piety.