Conscience quotes

“My own mind is my own church.”

The compact statement places personal conscience and reason above compulsory religious institutions in Paine’s deistic argument.

Source note: The Age of Reason, Part I, Chapter I; Paine’s religious position is historical deism and should not be flattened into a generic anti-institution slogan.

“Though asleep, the conscience is there”

Tolstoy argues that social conditioning can suppress moral awareness without eliminating it, leaving open the possibility that conscience can reawaken.

Source note: The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Chapter XII; Constance Garnett translation, Project Gutenberg #43302. In the concluding chapter Tolstoy discusses soldiers, authority, hypnotic social conditioning and moral responsibility, arguing that conscience may be put to sleep without being destroyed.

“truth is truth only when it is in action”

Tolstoy argues that truth becomes socially consequential when embodied in conduct rather than remaining only an inward opinion or abstract proposition.

Source note: My Religion, Chapter XII; Huntington Smith translation, represented 1885 Crowell edition, Project Gutenberg #43794. In the concluding chapter Tolstoy argues that truth becomes transmissible when embodied in action and brought to individual conscience; the explicitly Christian and social context remains visible.

“The integrity of the upright shall guide them.”

Integrity functions as an internal guide when a person has to choose without knowing every consequence in advance.

Source note: Proverbs 11:3 in the King James Version; the opening clause is quoted here.

“Man's freedom lies in the power of this choice.”

Tolstoy locates a limited but meaningful freedom in whether a person recognizes and acts upon the truth they believe they have understood.

Source note: The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Chapter XII; Constance Garnett translation, Project Gutenberg #43302. In the concluding chapter Tolstoy locates human freedom in the recognition or rejection of truth already revealed to conscience; the sentence states that freedom lies in this choice.

“To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.”

Recognizing the right course is incomplete if fear or convenience prevents a person from acting on that judgment.

Source note: The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book II connects moral recognition with the courage required for action.

“If we know the truth and do not live it, our life is—a lie.”

Knowing what is right is not enough in Jordan’s framework; conduct that contradicts acknowledged truth creates a gap between belief and lived character.

Source note: The Power of Truth, opening chapter, Project Gutenberg #56020; the dash is retained from the represented public-domain text.

“What Saith thy Conscience?—“Thou shalt become what thou art.””

The line frames conscience as a demand to develop into one’s own character rather than merely conforming to an externally supplied identity.

Source note: The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 270; Thomas Common translation. The formula has a longer classical and Nietzschean history, so this record is tied specifically to this occurrence.

“No matter what the thing is, put your conscience into it; do your best.”

Work gains moral weight when effort and conscience remain present even in tasks that seem small, routine, or unlikely to attract praise.

Source note: Character Building, “What Is To Be Our Future?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington asks whether Tuskegee will remain worthy of public confidence and answers by requiring each student and worker to put conscience and full effort into every kind of work.

“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

Thoreau distinguishes legality from moral rightness, warning that habitual reverence for law can become dangerous when law and conscience point in opposing directions.

Source note: Civil Disobedience, first printed in 1849 as “Resistance to Civil Government”; represented Wikisource text. The surrounding paragraph asks whether citizens should resign conscience to legislators.

“The individual was primary; the State, the Church, society, the family, secondary.”

The hierarchy places inherent personhood before social institutions, arguing that family, church, society, and government should serve rather than erase individual conscience and dignity.

Source note: Eighty Years and More, Chapter XIV; Stanton contrasts the primacy of individual conscience with older ideas that subordinate the person to institutions.

“the essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary justice.”

Large moral ambitions are brought back to ordinary obligations: doing the nearby duty and treating people justly matters more than impressive declarations of principle.

Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter V, “Simple Duty,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; Wagner contrasts ordinary duty with inflated moral ambition.

“Truth is the heart’s loyalty to abstract right, made manifest in concrete instances.”

Jordan connects principle with practice: loyalty to truth becomes meaningful only when it appears in the specific choices and statements of ordinary life.

Source note: The Power of Truth, opening chapter, Project Gutenberg #56020; the sentence summarizes Jordan’s conduct-of-life definition of truth.

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

Thoreau places personal moral judgment ahead of automatic obedience, arguing that conscience creates an individual responsibility to decide whether one’s own action is right.

Source note: Civil Disobedience, first printed in 1849 as “Resistance to Civil Government”; represented Wikisource text. The claim is part of Thoreau’s political argument about conscience, slavery, war and government.

“When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it.”

Once judgment has concluded an action is right, misplaced criticism should not become a reason to hide or abandon the action.

Source note: Enchiridion, chapter 35, George Long translation; the following sentence distinguishes right action from fear of wrong criticism.

“Shame and its consequent degradation follow the loss of our own good opinion rather than the esteem of others.”

The sentence places moral injury in losing one’s own considered respect, not merely in losing social approval, making conscience a more important measure than reputation.

Source note: How to Succeed; the sentence appears in Marden’s discussion of temptation, aspiration, and the damage caused when self-respect is surrendered.

“Can we so educate a group of students that there will be in every one of them a conscience on which we can depend.”

The educational question shifts attention from acquiring information to developing dependable moral judgment, which Washington treats as a central test of character formation.

Source note: Character Building, “Each One His Part,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington asks whether Tuskegee can educate an individual conscience that performs small duties thoroughly even when no audience is watching; the question closes that address’s argument about conscientious responsibility.

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

Jane’s self-care is inseparable from moral self-respect: the fewer external supports she has, the more firmly she refuses to abandon principles that preserve her dignity.

Source note: Jane Eyre, Chapter XXVII; Jane speaks while refusing a course she believes would violate her conscience, so the line belongs to a fictional character under moral pressure.

“It does not pay an individual to do anything except what his conscience will approve of every day, and every hour and minute in the day.”

Washington makes conscience a recurring test of conduct, asking whether ordinary choices can withstand one’s own moral approval rather than merely outside scrutiny.

Source note: Character Building, “What Will Pay?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington reports a discussion of honesty in business and uses conscience as a practical test of conduct; the sentence belongs to that address’s argument that dishonest dealing does not pay.

“Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.”

Different roles do not require different moral standards; Wollstonecraft argues for common principles of responsibility and virtue.

Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the passage rejects a separate moral standard built around sex rather than shared human duties.