68 Inspiring Conscience Quotes

In the quiet moments of reflection, our conscience whispers truths that often guide our actions and decisions. It is the silent compass that points us towards integrity, compassion, and authenticity. For those seeking wisdom and motivation on this introspective journey, we've gathered a powerful collection of 68 Inspiring Conscience Quotes. These insightful words from thinkers, leaders, and visionaries offer clarity and encouragement to align your life with the values that matter most. Whether you're at a crossroads or simply seeking daily inspiration, let these quotes be your beacon of guidance.

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. “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” - George Washington

3. “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” - H.L. Mencken

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. “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.” - Mark Twain

6. “Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.” - Tom Hodgkinson

7. “It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.” - Martin Luther

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

9. “A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.” - George Bernard Shaw

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

11. “Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.” - George Eliot

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

13. “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

14. “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

15. “Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.Listen to it carefully.” - Richard Bach

16. “We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.” - Michel de Montaigne

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

18. “I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.” - John Henry Newman

19. “The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” - Gaylord Nelson

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

21. “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

22. “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

23. “The bite of conscience is indecent.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

24. “All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorms room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my Essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.” - Rick Riordan

25. “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

26. “How pitiful is an intelligence used only to make excuses to quieten the conscience.” - Ignazio Silone

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

28. “In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.” - Mahatma Gandhi

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

30. “Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?"The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court.""And why is that?""Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience—only much more convincingly.” - Jim Butcher

31. “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

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. “Feel what it's like to truly starve, and I guarantee that you'll forever think twice before wasting food.” - Criss Jami

35. “Good girls hold their heads high by daylight, Their grace and their virtue soaring with kites,While bad girls slink along in their shame-Everyone stares at them, everyone blames.But those bad girls sleep soundly at night,Ne'er do their consciences wake them in a fright,While our good girls toss and they turn-They lay awake for those who will burn.” - Anna Godbersen

36. “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

37. “A good conscience is eight parts of courage.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

38. “Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.” - Thomas Hardy

39. “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

40. “True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right and wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has developed with mankind ... If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?” - Walter Van Tilburg Clark

41. “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

42. “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

43. “Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.” - Thomas Merton

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

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

46. “Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow.” - Walter Scott

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

48. “I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.” - Edmond Rostand

49. “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.” - Henry David Thoreau

50. “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

51. “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

52. “Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.” - Randy Alcorn

53. “It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.” - John Henry Newman

54. “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

55. “يا للإنسان! أيذبح في ذاكرته ذكريات لا يقوى على احتمالها؟ كنت أحسب أن فاقدي الضمير تتحجّر قلوبهم، فلا يشعرون بتأنيبه. فإذا الأمر مختلف. وإذا الإنسان أعجز من أن يقتل ضميره، فيقتل الذاكرة!” - إميل حبيبي

56. “You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.” - Philip Roth

57. “Will wrestled with his conscience, grappled it to the ground and sat on it until he couldn't hear a squeak out of it.” - Nick Hornby

58. “In case you’re not bright enough to figure it out, there’s a real upside to having a sinner like me answer your phone. I lie, and your conscience stays clear.” - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

59. “...freedom of conscience does not mean being uncontrolled - we have to control ourselves and at times submit to others...” - John Geddes

60. “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

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

62. “You can pray and fight at the same time, Corporal. Especially if you learn how before things get rough. It’s important to have a philosophy of life . . . and of death.” - Henry V. O'Neil

63. “C.S. Lewis said that conscience is nothing more than the voice of God within our souls; the bridge that links the creature to the creator” - Dinesh D'Souza

64. “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

65. “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

66. “He shrugged, "...my conscience rests easiest if I do only what I see as best in the moment...” - Anihyr Moonstar

67. “What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

68. “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