“What you encountered was an abomination, a military intelligence. It was designed to be insidious and spiteful and inimical to life, and it wasn’t smart enough to have a conscience.”

Source: God’s War (2011), Chapter 32 (p. 240).

Source: Unseen Academicals

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Diplomatic Immunity (2002), Chapter 2 (p. 32)

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 1.

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Book IV, Part 2, Section 4
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)
Context: The question here is not, “How conscience ought to be guided? For Conscience is its own General and Leader; it is therefore enough that each man have one. What we want to know is, how conscience can be her own Ariadne, and disentangle herself from the mazes even of the most raveled and complicated casuistical theology. Here is an ethical proposition that stands in need of no proof: No Action May At Any Time Be Hazarded On The Uncertainty That Perchance It May Not Be Wrong (Quod dubitas, ne feceris! Pliny - which you doubt, then neither do) Hence the Consciousness, that Any Action I am about to perform is Right, is in itself a most immediate and imperative duty. What actions are right, - what wrong – is a matter for the understanding, not for conscience. p. 251