"7 DEADLY SINS

Wealth without work

Pleasure without conscience

Science without humanity

Knowledge without character

Politics without principle

Commerce without morality

Worship without sacrifice."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory."
— Mark Twain

"An old man said to his grandchildren, 'Inside everyone are two fighting wolves. One wolf is generous and kind, but the other is deceitful and unkind.' One of the children asked his grandfather, 'Which wolf will win?' The old man replied, 'The one you feed.'"
— Native American proverb

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."
— H.L. Mencken

"Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully."
— Richard Bach (Illusions)

"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

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."
— Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

"It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience."
— Martin Luther

"Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us."
— Jim Carroll

"Science without conscience is the soul's perdition."
— François Rabelais (Pantagruel)

"Congratulations. You have met your conscience. In my experience, the world is divided between those who have one and those who don't. And the ones with one are divided into those who will act on their conscience and those who won't. Those who will are, I'm afraid, the smallest category. They will *jeito*. It's Brazilian Portuguese. It means to find a way to get something done, no matter what the obstacles."
— Jean Ferris (Twice Upon a Marigold)

"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

"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 (The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, and Waste)

""The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.""
— John Calvin

"That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins."
— Walter M. Miller Jr. (A Canticle for Leibowitz)

"Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does."
— Evan Esar

"Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul."
— Peter Kreeft (Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics)

"There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man."
— Polybius

"Whenever conscience speaks with a divided uncertain and disputed voice, it is not the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear, undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light, and serenity"
— Henri F. Amiel

"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 (Pieces of White Shell)

"Evil will remain with us, no one will ever eliminate human suffering, the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious adventurers and charlatans. And man will not stop destroying the world. In this regard, I have no illusions. Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all. At the very most, we can win a battle or two-- and not even that is certain. Yet I still think it makes sense to wage this war persistently... This must be done on principle, because it is the right thing to do. Or, if you like, because God wants it that way."
— Vaclav Havel

"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

"... a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway ..."
— Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

"Conscience is a man's compass

"
— Vincent Van Gogh