A good conscience is better than a big wage.
—Jamaican Proverb
A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Conscience! conscience! man’s most faithful friend!
—George Crabbe
Conscience tells us that we ought to do right, but it does not tell us what right is—that we are taught by God’s word.
—Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) American Army Chaplain, Evangelist
A conscience without God is like a court without a judge.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
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
Political and professional fame cannot last forever, but a conscience void of offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, therefore, is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to his throne. If that tie is sundered or broken, he floats away a worthless atom in the universe, its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation and death. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describes in so terse but terrific a manner, as “living without hope and without God in the world.” Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away from the purposes of his creation.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.
—Rose Macaulay (1881–1958) English Novelist, Essayist
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Though the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows.
—Lucretius (c.99–55 BCE) Roman Epicurean Poet, Philosopher
There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.
—French Proverb
The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that somebody may be looking.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
The belly has no conscience.
—German Proverb
Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.
—Chinese Proverb
Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart.
—Joseph Cook
A clear conscience is a soft pillow.
—Common Proverb
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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 is the true vicar of Christ in the soul; a prophet in its information; a monarch in its peremptoriness; a priest in its blessings or anathemas, according as we obey or disobey it.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
We never do evil so thoroughly and heartily as when led to it by an honest but perverted, because mistaken, conscience.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Conscience is a thousand swords.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.
—Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish-American Scientist, Philosopher of Language
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