Quotes about conscience

page 3

Source: L.A. Confidential

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Source: Dexter Is Delicious

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

Source: Ten Things I Love About You

Source: Life and Fate

1950s, Three Ways of Meeting Oppression (1958)
Context: To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed fails to be his brother's keeper. So acquiescence-while often the easier way-is not the moral way. It is the way of the coward.

Source: Death Bringer

Book II, Ch. 17.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

Source: Sins of the Night

Source: Eating Animals

Source: A Nation of Immigrants

Source: East of Eden

Source: Pinocchio

Source: Frankenstein

Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Source: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Source: A Fatal Grace

Source: Les Misérables

Variant: You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered. "You are my heart---and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?
Source: Drums of Autumn

The Fantastic Imagination (1893)
Source: A Dish of Orts
Context: A fairytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.
I will go farther. The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding — the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be.

Civil Disobedience (1849)
Source: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Context: Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Context: To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

On est heureux par soi-même quand on sait s'y prendre, avoir des goûts simples, un certain courage, une certaine abnégation, l'amour du travail et avant tout une bonne conscience.
Letter to Charles Poney, (16 November 1866), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 20, p. 188; André Maurois (trans. Gerard Hopkins) Lélia: The Life of George Sand (New York: Harper, 1954) p. 418
Variant: One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.
Source: Correspondance, 1812-1876, Volume 5

Source: The Wall

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Source: Watchmen

Source: Charmed Life

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Pantagruel

Letter to the House Committee on Un-American Activities http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6454 (HUAC) of the US House of Representatives (19 May 1952)
Context: I am ready and willing to testify before the representatives of our Government as to my own opinions and my own actions, regardless of any risks or consequences to myself.
But I am advised by counsel that if I answer the committee’s questions about myself, I must also answer questions about other people and that if I refuse to do so, I can be cited for contempt. My counsel tells me that if I answer questions about myself, I will have waived my rights under the fifth amendment and could be forced legally to answer questions about others. This is very difficult for a layman to understand. But there is one principle that I do understand: I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

Source: Nemesis

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Source: Foundation and Empire

Source: Perfect Match

Source: UnDivided

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Source: The Complete Persepolis

Source: Night

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Source: The Well of Ascension

Source: Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

Source: Gift from the Sea (1955)
Context: The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.
But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.
Context: The shape of my life today starts with a family. I have a husband, five children and a home just beyond the suburbs of New York. I have also a craft, writing, and therefore work I want to pursue. The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.
But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said, "May the outward and the inward man be at one." I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

“ Young People and the Church http://books.google.com/books?id=iu4nAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA310&dq=%22There+are+two+beings%22“ (13 October 1904)<!--PWW 15:510-519,516-->
Variant: If a dog will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience.
1900s
Context: There are two beings who assess character instantly by looking into the eyes,—dogs and children. If a dog not naturally possessed of the devil will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience; and if a little child, from any other reason than mere timidity, looks you in the face, and then draws back and will not come to your knee, go home and look deeper yet into your conscience.

Source: A Lesson Before Dying

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Eat, Pray, Love

Source: 1900s, Man and Superman (1903), p. 121

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

"David Brooks and the DLC: Best Friends Forever?", AlterNet (3 August 2006) http://web.archive.org/web/20060808224928/http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/39862/

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 611.

Letter to John Russell (5 October 1864), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 544.
1860s

On her initial decision not to disclose details of her final meeting with Rudd, prior to challenging him for the Labor Party leadership in June 2010.
The Killing Season, Episode three: The Long Shadow (2010–13)

Knowledge: an Ode (c. 1761)

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.16-19

Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 11

Harijan (24 February 1946). As quoted in The Politics Of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, Porter Sargent Publishers (1973), p. 59
1940s

Source: The Works of the Right Reverend George Horne, 1809, p. 64; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

Page 85.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

"Mud Libel" (19 January 2011).
2011

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Seven, Blackjack, p. 215

1960s, Address to Local 815, Teamsters and the Allied Trades Council (1967)

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

Variant: The man of ressentiment cannot justify or even understand his own existence and sense of life in terms of positive values such as power, health, beauty, freedom, and independence. Weakness, fear, anxiety, and a slavish disposition prevent him from obtaining them. Therefore he comes to feel that “all this is vain anyway” and that salvation lies in the opposite phenomena: poverty, suffering, illness, and death. This “sublime revenge” of ressentiment (in Nietzsche’s words) has indeed played a creative role in the history of value systems. It is “sublime,” for the impulses of revenge against those who are strong, healthy, rich, or handsome now disappear entirely. Ressentiment has brought deliverance from the inner torment of these affects. Once the sense of values has shifted and the new judgments have spread, such people cease to been viable, hateful, and worthy of revenge. They are unfortunate and to be pitied, for they are beset with “evils.” Their sight now awakens feelings of gentleness, pity, and commiseration. When the reversal of values comes to dominate accepted morality and is invested with the power of the ruling ethos, it is transmitted by tradition, suggestion, and education to those who are endowed with the seemingly devaluated qualities. They are struck with a “bad conscience” and secretly condemn themselves. The “slaves,” as Nietzsche says, infect the “masters.” Ressentiment man, on the other hand, now feels “good,” “pure,” and “human”—at least in the conscious layers of his mind. He is delivered from hatred, from the tormenting desire of an impossible revenge, though deep down his poisoned sense of life and the true values may still shine through the illusory ones. There is no more calumny, no more defamation of particular persons or things. The systematic perversion and reinterpretation of the values themselves is much more effective than the “slandering” of persons or the falsification of the world view could ever be.
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 76-77

Letter to Mrs. Armistead (15 December 1788), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 84.
1780s

The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life

Equity.
Table Talk (1689)

Captain Francis McCullagh, "The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity," Dutton and Company, 1924, page 192.
Adressing the court during his political show trial in 1923.

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 313.

"A Thieves' Thanksgiving," New York Review of Books, November 26, 2014

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 5, “The Aberrancy” (p. 74)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 551.

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

From an unspecified KPFA-FM radio show program.
[Peter, Waldman, Back to Earth: Jerry Brown, the Voice of New-Age Populism, Gets Down to Business, Wall Street Journal, 10 August 1999]
1999

Page 42
Love, Lucy (1996)

UN Address (1999)

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 10 “Mizzippy” (p. 188).

Gisela Mundt in Ch. 13
Masterclass (1988)

2000s, God Bless America (2008), Slavery and the American Cause

Je considère la poésie engagée comme une mission personnelle, un devoir envers une société où on évolue vers un contrôle des consciences : on devient même suspect de ne pas penser correctement !
As quoted in Letteratour (29 November 2004) http://www.letteratour.it/interviste/H02theunJ01.htm

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 214.

1960s, Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern (1966)

Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967)