"Conscience" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... preached by her chaplains in rotation. Often, however, weary with the excess of her mental labours, and lulled by the drowsy intonation of some of these ministers, the Queen slept during part of the discourse. Jeanne always felt severe reproach of conscience when she had thus involuntarily yielded to fatigue; and finding the inclination grow upon her, she demanded permission from the Synod to work tapestry during the sermon. This request was granted; and from thenceforth, Queen Jeanne, bending decorously ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... lawfulness of the end does not give us any thing further than barely the means necessary for the attainment of that end. Whatever we do beyond that, is reprobated by the law of nature—is faulty and condemnable at the tribunal of conscience. Hence it is that the right to such acts varies according to circumstance. What is just and perfectly innocent in one situation is not always so on other occasions. Right goes hand in hand with necessity and the exigency of the case, but ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... that too, he and I. He's given me an account of what passed between you here. My dear girl, your conscience may be quite clear on that point. Nobody can ever reproach you with trying to draw him into ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... started up in horror. At that moment the first driver appeared again; and Satan entered into me, and I felt in my heart that I should like to see a fight; and then conscience stepped up and drove him away, but consoled me by the assurance that I should see the fight all the same, for such duplicity deserved the severest punishment, and it was my duty to make an expose and vindicate helpless innocence imposed upon in the persons of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... John, but he soothed his conscience by telling himself that it was a white lie. If he should be captured for the third time Prince Karl of Auersperg was the last one whom he wanted to know of it. Neither was he pleased to hear that this medieval baron was again so near, although he did ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... indeed, the best defence you have for the disappearance of your brother's son; but, mark me, Thomas Gourlay—that defence will not pass with God, with me, nor with your own heart. I have my own opinion upon that subject, as well as upon many others. You may ask your own conscience, Thomas Gourlay, but he'll be a close friend of yours that will ever hear ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... that Taquisara, strong, loyal, and simple as he was, should honestly believe with all his heart that he had been married to Veronica; nor that Don Teodoro himself should look upon what he had unwittingly done as being something which he alone had no power to undo, if, in all conscience and truth, it ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... cast down to despair when he finds that it does not exist. The point is worth a pause, because it is a good, short way of stating Shaw's attitude, right or wrong, upon the whole of formal morality. What he dislikes in young Doctor Paramore is that he has interposed a secondary and false conscience between himself and the facts. When his disease is disproved, instead of seeing the escape of a human being who thought he was going to die of it, Paramore sees the downfall of a kind of flag or cause. This is the whole contention of The Quintessence of Ibsenism, put better than the book puts ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... governor, council and assembly and every township, so soon as it should consist of fifty families, would be entitled to send two representatives to the assembly. The courts of justice were similar to those of Massachusetts, Connecticut and the other northern colonies, and full liberty of conscience was secured to persons of all persuasions, "papists" excepted, by the royal instructions and a late act of the Assembly. As yet no taxes had been imposed or fees exacted on grants. Forts garrisoned with troops were established in the neighborhood ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... traditions may be summed up in the maxims which my father taught me—'Use hospitality; be courteous to high and low alike; assist the poor; succor the unhappy; give bountifully without grudging; and enjoy the goods heaven provides you, with a clear conscience, whether you are called an aristocrat or a democrat!' Such were my father's teachings; and he practised them, for he had the kindest and sweetest heart in the world. He was aided in all by my mother, a perfect saint upon earth; and if I have since that time given way to rude passions, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... qualities that are required in the higher spheres of statesmanship [are not] those of a hero or a saint. Passionate earnestness and self-devotion, complete concentration of every faculty on an unselfish aim, uncalculating daring, a delicacy of conscience and a loftiness of aim far exceeding those of the average of men, are here likely to prove rather a hindrance than an assistance. The politician deals very largely with the superficial and the commonplace; his art is in a great measure that of skilful compromise, and in the conditions of modern ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... ideal of the Theosophist is the at one-ment of his own spirit with that of the Infinite. This is the essential teaching of all religions, and to obtain this union you must believe in and obey the voice of your own higher conscience; for the true Christ is the Divine Spirit within you, and thus, God manifest ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... the heart of English song, there they fleeted the time as carelessly as men did in the golden age; for Robin was king of the merry greenwood, as the Norman kings were lords of the realm beside, and though his state was not so great nor his coffers so full, his heart was merrier and his conscience more void of offence against man and God. If Robin lived by plunder, so did the king; the one took toll from a few travellers, the other from a kingdom; the one dealt hard blows in self-defence, the other killed thousands ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... implore Him to grant to our armed defenders, and the masses of the people, that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the conscience of those in rebellion, that they may lay down their arms, and speedily return to their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... otherwise than in his dreams, but with that love the love of man arises—for, in characters like Sordello, personal love, once really stirred, is sure to expand beyond itself—and then, following on the love of man, conscience is quickened into life, and for the first time recognises itself and its duties. In this new light of love and conscience, directed towards humanity, he looks back on his life as an artist, or rather, Browning ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... The fact is, the duke's vices were turned, as vices frequently are, into scourges for his own back. He was a jovial, good-natured, affable, selfish man, an incessant and reckless gambler, quite devoid of all conscience about debts, and, indeed, of moral principle in general. When he got tired of Mrs. Clark, he meanly and heartlessly left her, with a promised annuity which he never paid, and with debts mutually incurred at their house in Gloucester Place, which he shamefully allowed ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... letter caused me no very great uneasiness. I knew the people up here. I knew that the Indian, the Breed, the Frenchman, and the White of this God's country were as invulnerable to bribery as Brokaw himself is to the pangs of conscience. I loved them. I had faith in them. I knew them to possess an honor which is not known down there, where we have a church on every four corners, and where the Word of God is preached day and night on the open streets. I felt myself warming with indignation as I replied to Brokaw, resenting ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... by Jove!" he murmured. "There's not a doubt of it! The little wretch!... She has scruples, has she!... Her conscience reproaches her! I am going to give her a lesson—one of my ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... his musical career; and lo! it had gone off with as little fizz and effect as a damp rocket. Lighting a cigarette, he indulged in ironical reflections. But, none the less, he heard the minutes ticking past, and as he was not only a creature of habit, but had also a troublesome northern conscience, he rose before the cigarette had formed its second spike of ash, and went to the piano: no matter how rebellious he felt, this was the only occupation open to him; and so he set staunchly out on the unlovely mechanical exercising, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... by our own criterions if we wish to understand the Americans, or to recognize that measure of loveliness which their warped and stunted and perverted lives certainly show, in spite of theory and in spite of conscience, even. I can make this clear to you, I think, by a single instance, say that of the American who sees a case of distress, and longs to relieve it. If he is rich, he can give relief with a good conscience, except for the harm that may come to ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... admission of my right to the whole. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof, to my mind, that he believed me entitled to the whole of them. I always felt worse for having received any thing; for I feared that the giving me a few cents would ease his conscience, and make him feel himself to be a pretty honorable sort of robber. My discontent grew upon me. I was ever on the look-out for means of escape; and, finding no direct means, I determined to try to ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... stopped. The man was no longer following her. She had been almost self-convinced of an intention to go to Eda's—not quite. Of late her conscience had reproached her about Eda, Janet had neglected her. She told herself she was afraid of Eda's uncanny and somewhat nauseating flair for romance; and to show Eda the new suit, though she would relish her friend's praise, would be the equivalent of announcing an affair of the heart which she, Janet, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Margaret can hardly have any wish to leave us on her own account, considering whom she must leave behind. It is for Hester's sake, I am confident. There is no doubt of the fact, Mr Hope. Your honour is involved. I repeat, you have won this dear girl's affections; and now you must act as a man of conscience, which I have ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... thereof among such as seek it out is commonly called "huffcap," "the mad dog," "Father Whoreson," "angels' food," "dragon's milk," "go-by-the-wall," "stride wide," and "lift leg," etc. And this is more to be noted, that when one of late fell by God's providence into a troubled conscience, after he had considered well of his reachless life and dangerous estate, another, thinking belike to change his colour and not his mind, carried him straight away to the strongest ale, as to the next physician. It is incredible to say how our malt-bugs lug at this ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so straitened and circumscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable that any really good woman would ever so far forget ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... that I shoot him if I see him?" asked Trevna, to make sure of his ground and make his conscience easy. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... contain in each of them some instructive moral; which I could prove by induction, but the way is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader's trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm, with a safe conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings; for it must be own'd, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or good ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... think there is a meaning in that—a Japanee isn't likely to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience, but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy chill of Christian reserve, unless—the thing is possible, for, to love, all things are so—that heathen should adopt our religion with ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... settling it, I know nothing about that. I've settled with my own conscience—such ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... much obliged to you, Oswald, for what you have done for me, but it is of no use. I almost wish that you had left me to perish in the sea, for I feel that I am dying. It is very terrible; I have all sorts of sins on my conscience. Then I think of how I encouraged you to get that young Hargrave and the older man Rudall carried off from their homes, and how they have both now probably been lost. It seems to me as if their deaths were ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... remained with our Army Mother all her life. She was but four years old when Mrs. Mumford found her one evening sobbing bitterly in her little cot long after she should have been asleep. She had told a falsehood, and conscience would not let her rest. When she had sobbed out her confession, her mother talked and prayed with her, and at last left her, happy in the assurance that she was forgiven ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... Stump and said nothing at all. And quite suddenly conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving. Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted—why he could not for the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and he ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... which his spirit may cling, on which his desires may fasten and rest, by which his heart may be blessed, which shall be authority for his will, peace for his fears, sprinkling and cleansing for his conscience, light for his understanding, shall be in complete correspondence with his inward nature—be water for his thirst, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... which I have just mentioned, because not of a nature to contribute so hourly to the employment of the thoughts, but yet in this sense equal, that the absence of either would have been an equal affliction,—namely, a conscience void of all offence. It was little indeed that I, drawn by no necessities of situation into temptations of that nature, had done no injury to any man. That was fortunate; but I could not much value myself upon what was so much an accident of my situation. Something, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... personal intercourse, and I wish to instruct you plainly that you are wrong in mistrusting us. The first and weightiest reason is that the oaths, which we took in the sight of heaven, are a barrier to mutual hostility. I envy not the man whose conscience tells him that he has disregarded these! For in a war with heaven, by what swiftness of foot can a man escape?—in what quarter find refuge?—in what darkness slink away and be hid?—to what strong fortress scale and be out of reach? Are not all things in all ways subject to the gods? is ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... served their guests at the table. It was a visible sign of their humility before the divine powers that rule human life. Besides, on every festive occasion in the royal court was placed a bountiful table with meat and drink for beggars and the most abject poor. The king was obliged by his Christian conscience and even by national tradition to be merciful. How the people regarded the kings is clear ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... control of the crops, and the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth, should King Constantine attempt to move his army out of the Peloponnesus: unless the King committed acts of hostility, no violence should be used. Having thus satisfied their conscience, the British Ministers abstained ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... hearts of the wise, that I brought to my duties no aim but zeal for the public good. For this cause I have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice. How often have I encountered and balked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How often have I thwarted ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... am sure of that by the cut of his canvas. Besides, we know every French craft on the station, and Johnny Crapaud has no such beauty as that brig among them. No; if you care for my opinion, Grenvile, it is that yonder fellow is a slaver that is not too tender of conscience to indulge in a little piracy at times, when the opportunity appears favourable, as it does at present. I have heard that, in contradiction of the adage that 'there is honour among thieves', there are occasionally to be found among the ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... concerning their consequences. He knew how much had been given, and filled his mind with fancies of how much would be required, till his impressed imagination was often disturbed by them, and his health suffered from the sensibility of his too tender conscience. A real Christian is so apt to find his talk ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... hadn't quite realized the physical side of it, what a messy and bloody job it would prove. Two hours and more he had listened to the thud of a whip on human flesh, and each separate stroke had been a blow upon his own nerves. Peter had an overdose of vengeance; and now, the morning after, his conscience was gnawing at him. He had known every one of those boys, and their faces rose up to haunt him. What had any of them done to deserve such treatment? Could he say that he had ever known a single one of them to do anything as violent as the ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... while my conscience was at work, urging me to repair the damage my forgetful passion had wrought, urging me to heal the breach with Butler, using what skill I might command, so that I could stay here where his Excellency had set me, plying my abhorred trade in ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... limits of Romish jurisdiction was long left undisturbed in the enjoyment of freedom of conscience. No sooner had the papacy obtained power than she stretched out her arms to crush all that refused to acknowledge her sway; and one after another, the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... sinner: conscience, with more or less power, constantly accuses. How can this awful matter of my guilt in the sight of that God, the confessed and only source of thy "good," be settled? Surely this is absolutely necessary to ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... nay, it might be in the Bible, he meant to look some day. But that he had anything to do with that change; that the working of the remedial system called for hands; that his had any charge in the matter, had never entered into his imagination nor stirred his conscience. He was living his old life at Paris, with his old dissatisfaction perhaps a trifle less bitter. He was seeking pleasure in whatever art, learning, literature, refinement, and luxury can do for a man who has ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... owned. In treating of the subserviency of the North, he will be constrained to write many a page which will flush the cheeks of our descendants with indignation and shame. He will show the method by which Slavery, after vitiating the conscience and intelligence of the South, contrived to vitiate in part, and for a time, the conscience and intelligence of the North. It will be his ungrateful task to point to many instances of compliance and concession on the part of able Northern statesmen which will deeply affect their fame with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... that he is a religious who is greatly respected, and one of learning and exemplary life, and has always had this reputation, I believe that he would be better in his cell than in the archbishopric or bishopric; and that it would be much better for his conscience and peace of mind, and that this commonwealth would gain much thereby. It is noticeable that his order, knowing him as they do, and regarding him as of good character and reputation, as I have said, have never employed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... had moved into the big house. Randy spent a good deal of time in the Judge's library at Huntersfield. He and Truxton had great plans for their future. They read law, sold cars, and talked of their partnership. The firm was to be "Bannister, Paine and Beaufort"; it was to have brains, conscience, and business acumen. ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... had held out stoutly against every appeal of natural affection, of reason, of conscience. He was not a quick-tempered man like his son; he was not, like his daughter-in-law, easily rebuffed; but there was about him a toughness of fibre which yielded neither to blows nor to pressure, and which, for many years, neither friend nor foe had penetrated. And here was this young thing simply ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... lines and uncouth political designations which puzzled and wearied readers" from 1840 to 1860, when Democrats divided into Conservatives and Radicals, Hunkers and Barnburners, and Hards and Softs; and when Whigs were known as Conscience and Cotton, and Woollies and Silver Grays. More recently James Parton, in his Life of Andrew Jackson, speaks of "that most unfathomable of subjects, the politics of the State ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... as I came on to the Ship Quay, and tired enough I was with my long day's drive. Yet I was a little proud to have come to my journey's end safely, albeit that story I had told about Fahan stuck in my conscience. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... themselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it too, but could never quite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom-House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the wall; ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... powerful to break, like his friend Erasmus, the fetters of error, yet not sufficiently bad to employ it, like his predecessor, Granvella, in the service of his own passions. Too weak and timid to follow boldly the guidance of his reason, he preferred trusting to the more convenient path of conscience; a thing was just so soon as it became his duty; he belonged to those honest men who are indispensable to bad ones; fraud reckoned on his honesty. Half a century later he would have received his immortality ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... vice, but less malicious and hurtful than the others, which, almost all, more directly jostle public society. And if we cannot please ourselves but it must cost us something, as they hold, I find this vice costs a man's conscience less than the others, besides that it is of no difficult preparation, nor hard to be found, a consideration not altogether to be despised. A man well advanced both in dignity and age, amongst three principal commodities that he said remained to him of life, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... whether you have done wrong or not. You had better confess all your conscience accuses ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... with an air of resignation, with a childish, half-hearted protest, that he counted out the desired amount into Lewis's hand, salving his conscience with the statement: "I'm doing this to help Adolfo out of his trouble, understand? I hope it'll enable you ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Undoubtedly the human conscience, and especially the boyish article, recognizes a broad difference between the theft of growing crops—of apples on the trees, for instance, or corn on the stalk, or melons in the field—and that of other species of property. The surreptitious appropriation of the former class of ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... second nature to him. But the estimate which a man forms of himself in later life, if he has arrived at any strong abhorrence of moral evil, is harsher than others at the time would have been likely to have formed. Even then the poor child's conscience must have been curiously sensitive, and it revenged itself ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... are not responsible for events, but we can almost always choose the way to meet them. Only, some flatter their passions and refuse to assert themselves against them! This weakness opens the door to all other concessions, and then it becomes difficult to make a loyal examination of our conscience." ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... me to all whispers of decency; conscience lay stunned within me, and I think I know now what black obsession drives men's bodies into murder and their ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Prior, when he surprised him drawing men and women out of his head, told him that painting was a sin. The young man himself then strongly repented his inclination, but, as he felt he could not live without following it, he left the monastery, though with many strong twinges of conscience. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... had shot at him in so cowardly a manner. He saw that the surveyor, who had thus far kept in the background, was expostulating with the angry man. He could not hear what they said, but it was evident that the surveyor was a man of some conscience and could not see such murderous actions without striving to put Halpen in better mind. But the latter shook him off in rage and loaded his gun again. The house was now surrounded by the four armed men and the three understrappers were only waiting ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... hasn't got much of a political conscience, but he's got a sense of what's silly. Well, now, I expect you want ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fully communing with them, as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on. There is a very holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in the affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... on shore to bury poor Bob. The captain seemed sorry for him. "He was a man of better education than his messmates, though, to be sure, he had been a wild chap," he observed to me. Bob's conscience had been awakened; that of the others remained hardened or fast asleep, and they died as they had lived, foul, unwashed, unfit to enter a pure and ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... "There were times when conscience knocked loudly at my heart, and I was tortured with shame to see myself in the garb of Fools, the sport of all, from prince to scullion. But in the three years that I had dwelt at Pesaro my identity had been forgotten by the few who had ever been ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... the same zeal as Bacon, he returns to his own mountains to put himself under their tutelage, and by their help first discovers the great relations of the earth and the air: struck at last with mortal disease; gloomy, enthusiastic, and superstitious, with a conscience burning like lava, and inflexible like iron, the clouds gather about the majesty of him, fold after fold; and, with his spirit buried in ashes, and rent by earthquake, yet fruitful of true thought and faithful affection, he stands like that mound of desolate scoria that crowns the hill ranges ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... aspect of the nation is somewhat less promising. Though the royal edict gives protection to all religions, and permits every man to choose for himself in matters of conscience, it can scarcely be said that the two kings take any real interest in Christianity. They think less of Booddhism, its mystic creed and imposing ceremonies, and have made very many changes in the form of worship; but, apparently, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... complete turning from the sin. Penitence is transient, and may involve no change of character or conduct. There may be sorrow without repentance, as for consequences only, but not repentance without sorrow. Compunction is a momentary sting of conscience, in view either of a past or of a contemplated act. Contrition is a subduing sorrow for sin, as against the divine holiness and love. Remorse is, as its derivation indicates, a biting or gnawing back of guilt upon the heart, with no turning ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... motley of wit, often gains entrance to ears deaf to angelic voices. There are follies that are to be laughed out of their silliness and sinfulness. There are tyrants, big and little, to be dethroned by ridicule. There are offences, proof against appeals to conscience, that wince and vanish before keen satire. Even as a well-aimed joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to stand than hard knocks,—even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... but the unvarnished truth—and of that chapter of Italian history the less said the better—but I am convinced that she finally entered the war, not because she had been bribed by promises of territorial concessions, but because the national conscience demanded that she join the forces of civilization in their struggle against barbarism. Suppose that I sketch for you, in brief, bold outline, the chain of historic events which occurred during the ten months between the presentation to Serbia of the ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... yearned to encourage believing brethren who for conscience' sake had felt constrained to separate themselves from the state churches, and meet for worship in such conditions as would more accord with New Testament principles, and secure ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Fulk(874)) doth give reason for that order of covering women's heads: "By whose example the preachers are likewise to endeavour to satisfy, by reason, both men and women, that humbly desire their resolution for quiet of their conscience, and not to beat them down with the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... any moment, unless he is very interesting, and it does not matter where they part company. In fact, it might be argued that the modern fidelity to its subject is one of the chief evidences or causes of the essay's decay. The essayist tries to make a mechanical conscience perform the duty of that fine spiritual freedom in which the essay once had its highest effect with the reader, and in his dull loyalty to the stated thesis he is superficial ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... it is the bounden duty of Parliament to promote the observance of the Lord's day, by protecting every class of society against being required to sacrifice their comfort, health, religious privileges, and conscience, for the convenience, enjoyment, or supposed advantage of any other class on the Lord's day'! The idea of making a man truly moral through the ministry of constables, and sincerely religious under the influence of penalties, is worthy ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... know you'll have an attack of bad conscience to-morrow; and I shall have to suffer ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... them; he looked upon it as a providential occurrence that they should have been sent there at that juncture. His forefathers, he said, had been settled there many years, and had hitherto enjoyed liberty of conscience; but now he feared they were about to be deprived of that privilege. Before the Friends left Berlenburg, he called at their inn with several more of his society; he appeared to be a truly pious man, and looked, they say, exactly like a good old Friend. He ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... far as it is more than mere reporting and mere money making, so far as it undertakes to frame and guide opinion, to educate the thought and instruct the conscience of the community, by editorial comment, interpretation and homily, based on the news, is under obligation to the community to be truthful, sincere, and uncorrupted; to enlighten the understanding, not to darken counsel; to uphold justice and honor with unfailing resolution, to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... their spite on an innocent ship. So, for the hour, she was inspired. It is the high-souled enthusiast who devotes life itself to a cause; those who practice oppression have ever most to beware of in the man or woman whose conscience will ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... leaping and scrambling with delight, enjoyed the sport mightily; while this indefatigable, but merry matron, manipulated them all over, as if it were a matter of conscience. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... stomache, would therefore apply and weare close vpon his Liuer and stomache a cake of lead; he might within a very short time (I hope) be susteined very good cheape at an Ordinairie, beside the cleering of his conscience from that deadly sinne of gluttonie. And as if, because the Heart is full of vitall spirits, and in perpetuall motion, a man would therefore lay a heauy pound stone on his breast, for staying and holding downe that wanton palpitation, I doubt not but his breast would ...
— A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco • King James I.
... the little dog and held it carefully in his lap. Then he shook his head, with his eyes still fixed upon his interlocutor. "No, Mr. Newman, I have a good conscience," ...
— The American • Henry James
... curved. Now, pray, no bosh About the habit of defending crime Dulling the sensibilities in time! The theory won't wash! Once place my colleague on the other side, You'd say, This lawyer should be deified! Oh, what a conscience he would then reveal! Sinners would tremble at his dread appeal! You would perceive (At least, you would be ready to believe,) That, noting all the most abhorred deeds Known to our records, this affair must needs Be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... self-defence. With the greatest fault and the only crime that Charles in his whole life committed Mr. Macaulay does not reproach him—the consent to the execution of Lord Strafford—that indeed, as he himself penitentially confessed, was a deadly weight on his conscience, and is an indelible stain on his character; but even that guilt and shame belongs in a still greater degree to Mr. Macaulay's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... dearest and sweetest father: because it is our hour to give for that Bride honour to God and labour to her. I beg you, by the love of Christ crucified, to pray the holy father that he adopt zealously, without negligence, every remedy which can be found consistent to his conscience for the reform of Holy Church and peace to this great war which is damning so many souls, since for all negligence and lukewarmness God will rebuke Him most severely, and will demand the souls who through this are perishing. Commend me to him; and ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... Aunt Susan, recovering herself on the spot. "And I do not mean to be morbid about it; only, at the time, my conscience troubled me, and your poor aunty had a very bad time. It was soon afterwards that my dear father wrote to me, and I shall always keep his letter. Since then I have never been jealous of any one, and I would advise you ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Fasting, therefore, and the state of celibacy, are the one a christian obligation, the other a christian perfection. Again, being members of a body so exalted, and receiving our very salvation in a way altogether above reason, we must be cautious how we either trust to our individual conscience rather than to the command of the Church, or how we venture to exercise our reason at all in judging of what the Church teaches; childlike faith and childlike obedience are the dispositions which God most loves. What, then, are they who are not of the Church, who do not receive ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... resources of We-all, Pewee and Big Wheat, let us be generous. If there was a sponge, kicker, shirk or drone, let us cover his selfishness with the mantle of charity. Leave him under the beating light of progress to wrestle with whatever remnant of a conscience he may happen to have. If he can stand by and coolly watch us work our gizzards out for the common good, and then reach out to share the fruits of our sacrifices, energies and enterprise, without a qualm, we can remember ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... but severe and insupportable to foolish apostates; the former of whom, if I am not deceived, will receive the same with tears flowing from god's love; but the others with sorrow, such as is extorted from the indignation and pusillanimity of a convicted conscience. ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... conceived that the state of affairs in Europe at that time, when recounted to Ieyasu, could scarcely fail to shock and astonish the ruler of a country where freedom of conscience may be said to have always existed. The Inquisition and the stake; wholesale aggressions in the name of the Cross; a head of the Church whose authority extended to confiscation of the realms of heretical sovereigns; religious wars, and profound fanaticism—these ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... exhibits various changes. Are they for the better or the worse? In the first place, he introduces a new motive into the conduct of Arcite—remorse of conscience. When fate has declared against him, and he finds that he cannot enjoy the possession of the prize which he has wrongfully won, his eyes open upon his own injustice, and he acknowledges the prior right of Palamon, who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... sensitive conscience is simply the evidence of spiritual dyspepsia. The man who has it is no better ...
— Crankisms • Lisle de Vaux Matthewman
... fully admits that this step which he has humbly proposed to your Majesty may fail to produce any good effect, and that it may even be turned hereafter to the injury of the Government; but, at all events, Lord Aberdeen's conscience will be clear; and if Lord Palmerston has any generous feelings, it is not impossible that he may appreciate favourably a proceeding which cannot but afford ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the Eugenic moral basis is this; that the baby for whom we are primarily and directly responsible is the babe unborn. That is, that we know (or may come to know) enough of certain inevitable tendencies in biology to consider the fruit of some contemplated union in that direct and clear light of conscience which we can now only fix on the other partner in that union. The one duty can conceivably be as definite as or more definite than the other. The baby that does not exist can be considered even before the wife who does. Now it is essential to grasp that this ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... know it's sad in all conscience. But Furnival seemed to think it funny then, for he called my attention to him. I mustn't miss ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... think you understand me," said Wiggins, gloomily. "Has not your conscience already suggested to you the probable cause of this strange course of her whom ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the wind was fair, but yet Shandon did not set sail; he wanted to wait another day, and, to satisfy his conscience, to give time for any member of the human race to rejoin the Forward; he even fired off, every hour, the ship's gun, which re-echoed among the icebergs; but he only succeeded in frightening the flocks of molly-mokes[1] and rotches.[1] During the night many rockets were set off; but in vain. He ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... progress in philology and criticism, which led to a correct knowledge of the classics, to a fresh taste in poetry, to new systems of thought, to more accurate analysis, and finally to the Lutheran schism and the emancipation of the conscience. Men of science will discourse about the discovery of the solar system by Copernicus and Galileo, the anatomy of Vesalius, and Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. The origination of a truly scientific method is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... about clients. Wait until the questions deal with the doings of To[u]kichi. That will be well. Then it will be time enough to lie. Meanwhile, be sure and tell the truth." With this disinterested advice To[u]kichi was passed to the presence. Once more conscience spoke louder than caution. "The honoured benevolence, the honoured pity; condescend the honoured examination into the innocence of To[u]kichi." Yaemon laughed. "Fortunately it is not a matter of To[u]kichi, but of his plasters. Who bought these ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... his love for Belinda confounded all his moral calculations: one moment, his feelings as a man of honour forbade him to condescend to the meanness of dissimulation; but the next instant his feelings as a lover prevailed; and he satisfied his conscience by the idea that, as his vow must preclude all danger of his return to the gaming-table in future, it would only be creating an unnecessary alarm in Belinda's mind to speak to her of his past imprudence. His generosity at first revolted from the thought of suppressing those praises of Clarence ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... better off to-day that I am, Tess, after all! You don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... pallid, but he had no desire to recede. He had acted according to the dictates of his conscience and he had ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... event, cruelly gloried in by the Pope and the Spanish Court, which kindled a fire in the nation that was not quenched, although it extinguished Protestantism proper in France, till Charles was coerced to grant liberty of conscience throughout ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... on her for that. If the girl had been ambitious to marry above her, in what way was she more guilty than she herself had been in marrying a man she did not love, simply for his wealth and social position? Besides, Alicia was herself sorely troubled. Her conscience told her that a word from her might set the whole matter right. She might be able to prove that Underwood committed suicide. She knew she was a coward and worse than a coward because she dare not ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Angelique was conscience-smitten. As soon as she was alone, she sobbed as if she had done something wrong. And this question, which she could not answer, came constantly to her mind: Had she sinned in listening to this young man? Was ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... sheep ready dressed, which meant mutton, and of wine, and of bread, and milk, and figs and raisins, of fatted calves, a good well-browned fillet of veal, and such like; but it had always gone against her conscience to cook swine-flesh and make raised pork-pies, and now if she was to be set to cook heathen dishes after the fashion of the Papists, she'd sooner give it all up together. So the cook followed in Betty's track, and Mr. Gibson had to satisfy his healthy English appetite on badly made omelettes, rissoles, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... want to get away from there. Fur that secret made me feel kind of sneaking, like I wasn't being frank and open with them. Yet if I had of told 'em I would of felt sneakinger yet fur giving Miss Hampton away. I never got into a mix up that-a-way betwixt my conscience and my duty but what it made me feel awful uncomfortable. So I guessed I would light out from there. They wasn't never no kinder, better people than them Davises, either. They was so pleased with my bringing Bud home the night he ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... bias appears in the moral sphere. Utilitarians have attempted to show that the human conscience commends precisely those actions which tend to secure general happiness and that the notions of justice and virtue prevailing in any age vary with its social economy and the prizes it is able to attain. And, if due ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... "What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist,—a man devoid of conscience,—a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts,—I might have found peace, long ere now. Nay, I never should have lost it! But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I have a guide. I am warned of everything. Nothin' happens to me that I don't know it before. Follow your first mind. Conscience it is. It's a great thing ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... was for his green box, which was, he found, safely and securely in his hand. Then for Hamlet, who was, he saw with horror, already upon the platform, the lead trailing behind him like a neglected conscience, his burning eyes piercing his hair in search of another dog, whom he smelt but could ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self- abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall:—all these were things of which I was afraid. ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... sorry I dare not, because in some men's abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over-true; but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... organization of the internal man, which can retain the wholeness and brightness of its powers only by constant use. We are weak and useless, not because we were created to be so, but because we do not listen to the voice of conscience when it tells us to serve the Lord with all our strength, in the very place where we now are, and at the very time that now is. It is not because the power of growth is not in them that our talents do not multiply, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... seldom hear the expression made use of, as he has since admitted, without being sensibly affected. It having once happened to him, in the hurry of business, to turn away a poor person who had asked a charity for the love of God, his conscience smote him immediately, and he ran after the poor man, relieved him amply, and made a promise to God that he would never refuse a single individual as long as it was in his power, when an alms should ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was a-couching his Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those allegories, which Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Cornutus squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again from them? If you trust ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Caesar the things which are Caesar's," by legislating only in regard to those secular interests in which all stand alike before the law and to leave to the free and untrammeled decision of the individual conscience those deeper, personal attitudes ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... commanded her conscience; and acting upon the impulse of the moment, she flew into the old gentleman's arms almost before he had crossed the threshold and panted out, "I 'xpect you'll be compendled to use your brass-stick measures on me this time sure. I guv away ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... that euer he dyd. This horsman answered and sayd: one of the greatest actys that euer I dyd whiche I now most repent is that, whan I toke Oconer the last weke in a chyrche, and there I myght haue brennyd[19] hym chyrche and all, and because I had conscience and pyte of brennyng of the chyrche, I taryed the tyme so long, that Oconer escaped; and that same deferrynge of brennynge of the chyrche and so longe taryeng of that tyme is one of the worst actes that euer I dyd wherof I moste[20] repent. This frere ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... "My conscience was very much pleased with me," was the answer. "What I did was a stratagem, and perfectly fair too. If I had found that it was right for you to see Junius, I would have done everything I could to help you communicate with him. But when I did at ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... it was Wednesday, in the evening at Crozat's, he publicly expressed his approbation, which, in the conditions in which it had been offered, did not satisfy his conscience. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... said young Selby, as he laid his finger on his lip in token of silence, "this man knows more than he has ever learned from holy lore. Last night, we listened at his cell, and strange things we heard. He muttered on till dawn. No conscience clear and void of evil intent remains ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... some day feel the duties of repentance, and of acknowledgment in such forms as to correct the wrong he has done. Perhaps he will have to wait till the passions of the moment have passed away. All this is left to his own conscience. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... door. The air is heavy with a cold damp chill. We shall have rain to-morrow, or before. Good night." He vanished in the darkling shade; And so the dreaded evening found an end, That saw me grasp the conscience-whetted blade, And strike a blow ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... people." Then Garnet said to those near him, "I always disapproved of tumults and seditions against the king, and if this crime of the powder treason had been completed I should have abhorred it with my whole soul and conscience." They then advised him to declare as much to the people. "I am very weak," said he, "and my voice fails me. If I should speak to the people, I cannot make them hear me; it is impossible that they should ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... ought not merely to destroy his victim. He ought to try a bit to make him feel his error—perhaps not enough to convert him, but enough to give him a bad conscience and to weaken the energy of his defence. These violent caricatures of men's beliefs arouse only contempt for the incapacity of their authors to see the situations out of which the problems grow. To ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought: And enterprises of great weight and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... "My conscience is clear," said Janet, and her gaze, spiritual, exalted, patient, showed that she spoke the truth, that her mother's looks and words ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... about Allen around the campus. He was good looking, belonged to a fraternity in high standing, wore excellent clothes, and did fairly well in his studies; but the rumors persisted. There were students who insisted that he hadn't the conscience of a snake, and a good many of them hinted that no honest man ever had such consistently good luck at cards ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... deux was just what he had intended it to be, simple and yet perfect in every detail. The subject of Franklin Marmion's departure from the world was, as if by mutual consent, dropped. Oscarovitch comforted such conscience as he had by trying to believe that what Nitocris had said about her belief in the Doctrine was to her really true. He also honestly believed that she had faced her great sorrow in solitude, and overcome it in the strength of that belief. Their conversation turned easily away ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith |
