A good conscience is better than a big wage.
—Jamaican Proverb
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Conscience is as good as a thousand witnesses.
—Italian Proverb
Conscience is the mirror of our souls which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.
—George Bancroft (1800–91) American Historian, Politician
Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) Swiss Poet
Conscience is not given to a man to instruct him in the right, but to prompt him to choose the right instead of the wrong when he is instructed as to what is right. It tells a man that he ought to do right, but does not tell him what is right. And if a man has made up his mind that a certain wrong course is the right one, the more he follows his conscience the more hopeless he is as a wrongdoer. One is pretty far gone is an evil way when he serves the devil conscientiously.
—Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) American Army Chaplain, Evangelist
Better a good conscience without wisdom than wisdom without a good conscience.
—German Proverb
Two things fill the mind with ever increasing wonder and awe. The more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
He that is conscious of crime, however bold by nature, becomes a coward.
—Menander (c.343–c.291 BCE) Greek Comic Dramatist, Poet
There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
—Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
No matter how big a house you have or how slick a car you drive, the only thing you can take with you at the end of your life is your conscience.
—Robin Sharma (b.1964) Canadian Writer, Motivational Speaker
Conscience, though ever so small a worm while we live, grows suddenly into a serpent on our deathbed.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises.
—Leontyne Price (b.1927) American Opera Singer
Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.
—Chinese Proverb
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
I am more afraid of my own heart than the Pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope, Self.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a necessary evil, it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
Preserve your conscience always soft and sensitive. If but one sin force its way into that tender part of the soul and is suffered to dwell there, the road is paved for a thousand iniquities.
—Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English Hymn writer
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Radical, Inventor
The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.
—Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French Theologian, Musician, Philosopher, Physician
It is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops.—One single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through.
—Charles Buxton (1823–71) British Politician, Writer
If any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart: if thou be guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction: make use of both; so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude.—If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it.—But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself?—Miserable is he who slights that witness.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
One should be more concerned about what his conscience whispers than about what other people shout.
—Indian Proverb
The belly has no conscience.
—German Proverb
There is one thing alone that stands the brunt of life throughout its length: a quiet conscience.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
For a lot of people their conscience lives in the middle of the street.
—German Proverb
Conscience is the dog that can’t bite, but never stops barking.
—Common Proverb
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
My dominion ends where that of conscience begins.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Conscience is merely our own judgment of the right or wrong of our actions, and so can never be a safe guide unless enlightened by the word of God.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Conscience! conscience! man’s most faithful friend!
—George Crabbe
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that somebody may be looking.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
There is no witness so terrible-no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
—Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Be the master of your will, and the slave of your conscience.
—Yiddish Proverb
A good conscience is the palace of Christ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the paradise of delight; the standing Sabbath of the saints.
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Heed the still, small voice that so seldom leads us wrong, and never into folly.
—Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand (1697–1780) French Socialite, Patron of the Arts