58 Conscience Quotes To Inspire

In our fast-paced world, it's easy to lose touch with our inner moral compass. Yet, the whispers of our conscience often guide us through life's most complex dilemmas, reminding us of the core values that define us. In this collection, we've gathered some of the most profound conscience quotes, carefully curated to spark introspection and inspiration. Whether you're seeking guidance, clarity, or simply a moment of reflection, these quotes offer a window into the wisdom of thinkers and leaders across the ages, who remind us of the quiet power of listening to that inner voice. Prepare to embark on a journey through words that challenge, uplift, and inspire your ethical contemplations.

1. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” - Charlotte Brontë

2. “Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.” - Francois Rabelais

3. “Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us.” - Jim Carroll

4. “The Seven Social Sins are: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle.From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.” - Frederick Lewis Donaldson

5. “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

6. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” - John Milton

7. “That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins.” - Walter M. Miller Jr.

8. “The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are to love truly and freely, we must be able to give something that is truly our own to another. If our heart does not belong to us, asks Merton, how can we give it to another?” - Jon Katz

9. “Character is doing what you don't want to do but know you should do.” - Joyce Meyer

10. “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” - Leo Tolstoy

11. “Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.” - Evan Esar

12. “Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.” - Oscar Wilde

13. “Since then your sere Majesty and your Lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."(Reply to the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521)” - Martin Luther

14. “An educator should consider that he has failed in his job if he has not succeeded in instilling some trace of a divine dissatisfaction with our miserable social environment. ” - Anthony Standen

15. “Storytelling awakens us to that which is real. Honest. . . . it transcends the individual. . . . Those things that are most personal are most general, and are, in turn, most trusted. Stories bind. . . . They are basic to who we are.A story composite personality which grows out of its community. It maintains a stability within that community, providing common knowledge as to how things are, how things should be -- knowledge based on experience. These stories become the conscience of the group. They belong to everyone.” - Terry Tempest Williams

16. “Une civilisation sans la Science, ce serait aussi absurde qu'un poisson sans bicyclette.” - Pierre Desproges

17. “Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ” - Carl Gustav Jung

18. “The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.” - John Calvin

19. “Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience.” - Louise Penny

20. “The highest court is in the end one’s own conscience and conviction—that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist—and before any science there is first of all belief.” - Max Planck

21. “Dead men cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others lasts only till the grave. Deeds and actions that energise others belong only to the living. Well, then, look at the facts in this case. The Saviour is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men...?” - St. Athanasius

22. “There is no conscience in a real war.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

23. “Between the radiant white of a clear conscience and the coal black of a conscience sullied by sin lie many shades of gray--where most of us live our lives. Not perfect but not beyond redemption.” - Sherry L. Hoppe

24. “Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul.” - Peter Kreeft

25. “You govern people, you do good and bad things.If you don't have guts to do bad, then step aside.” - Toba Beta

26. “I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

27. “Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.” - Toba Beta

28. “There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.” - Polybius

29. “In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.” - Viktor E. Frankl

30. “When spontaneous demoralizing thoughts seep into your conscience, don't trip...allowing them to fester. These are random tests of your conviction and determination. Large or small, your reaction to such intrusions is a defining moment for which no one else, but you, can mitigate.” - T.F. Hodge

31. “The truth is that we were so spiritually and morally bankrupt that we could not even see some of those lines: we stepped over them blindly. Other times we saw the lines alright, but we wanted to cross them. Alcohol gave us the false courage to do it and numbed our conscience as we did. Alcohol was the great enabler, and the great anesthetic. It wasn’t God who was dead. We were. – p. 116” - Ray A

32. “It's a sin only if conscience confirmed it.” - Toba Beta

33. “Conscience is like a pet: If you spoil it by too much attention it'll start yipping at the most inopportune times.” - Connie Brockway

34. “Atticus, you must be wrong." "How's that?" "Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong. . ." "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.” - Harper Lee

35. “Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk.” - Raymond Chandler

36. “I hate what you represent."... "Power without conviction." Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact. "Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you.” - Jim Butcher

37. “I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last.” - Charlotte Brontë

38. “A Gentleman's agreement cannot be broken without breaking the person who has entered into it.” - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

39. “The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition.But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.” - Barack Obama

40. “I couldn't begin to tell you what terrible trigger for such insanity lies deep in my sub-conscious. Though no doubt some would say that, indeed, it may be some demon of conscience. A deeply buried guilt for some unforgivable depravity. Then again, perhaps not.” - Angel Rosa

41. “Perhaps conscience did not always produce cowards. Sometimes it made a man feel better about himself.” - Robert Ludlum

42. “All this gave way to my first encounter with guilt, which is still something entirely inscrutable to me, as if aliens were sending transmissions from another planet, telling me there is a right and a wrong in the universe.” - Donald Miller

43. “A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

44. “RICH I’m lamenting. I’ve lost my innocence.CROMWELL You lost that some time ago. If you’ve only just noticed, it can’t have been very important to you.” - Robert Bolt

45. “No," said Father. "Just do the best you can and don't let it worry you. In that way you'll have a clear conscience and a tranquil heart.” - Carol Ryrie Brink

46. “I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.” - Octavia E. Butler

47. “The root of liberalism, in a word, is hatred of compulsion, for liberalism has the respect for the individual and his conscience and reason which the employment of coercion necessarily destroys. The liberal has faith in the individual – faith that he can be persuaded by rational means to beliefs compatible with social good.” - Harold Edmund Stearns

48. “The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.” - Leo Tolstoy

49. “Killing Japanese didn’t bother me at that time. It was getting the war over with that bothered me. So I wasn’t worried particularly about how many people we killed in getting the job done… . All war is immoral, and if you let it bother you, you’re not a good soldier.” - Ronald Schaffer

50. “Whenever the conviction of God’s Spirit comes there is the softening of the whole nature to obey; but if the obedience is not instant there will come a metallic hardening and a corrupting of the guidance of God.” - Oswald Chambers

51. “Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self-control. When mixed with an already clear conscience, the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps one's conscience both clear and at ease.” - Criss Jami

52. “To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.” - Susan Sontag

53. “É bom quando nossa consciência sofre grandes ferimentos, pois isso a torna mais sensível a cada estímulo. Penso que devemos ler apenas livros que nos ferem, que nos afligem. Se o livro que estamos lendo não nos desperta como um soco no crânio, por que perder tempo lendo-o? Para que ele nos torne felizes, como você diz? Oh Deus, nós seríamos felizes do mesmo modo se esses livros não existissem. Livros que nos fazem felizes poderíamos escrever nós mesmos num piscar de olhos. Precisamos de livros que nos atinjam como a mais dolorosa desventura, que nos assolem profundamente – como a morte de alguém que amávamos mais do que a nós mesmos –, que nos façam sentir que fomos banidos para o ermo, para longe de qualquer presença humana – como um suicídio. Um livro deve ser um machado para o mar congelado que há dentro de nós” - Franz Kafka

54. “We must hide our integrity, like we hide our love.” - UR Ananthamurthy

55. “Dabei wissen wir doch:Auch der Hass gegen die NiedrigkeitVerzerrt die Züge.Auch der Zorn über das UnrechtMacht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wirDie wir den Boden bereiten wollten für FreundlichkeitKonnten selber nicht freundlich sein.” - Bertolt Brecht

56. “Conscience, Christ, and the gift of faith make evil men uneasy in their sin. They feel that if they could drive Christ from the earth, they would be free from "moral inhibitions." They forget that it is their own nature and conscience which makes them feel that way. Being unable to drive God from the heavens, they would drive his ambassadors from the earth. In a lesser sphere, that is why many men sneer at virtue--because it makes vice uncomfortable.” - Fulton J. Sheen

57. “A marching army first crushes the flowers before the enemy; but even before this, it crushes its own conscience! Conscience and killing cannot be together!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

58. “A standing prick hath no conscience. And if that standing prick is attached to Bruce Robertson then it hath less than no conscience. You can't afford a conscience in this life, that has become a luxury for the rich and a social ball and chain for the rest of us. Even if I wanted one, which I certainly do not, I wouldn't have the faintest idea as how to go about getting one.” - Irvine Welsh