"Conscience" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bertha not to suppose that her appreciation of strange and beautiful things meant forgetfulness of what must be a lifelong sorrow. "I am often worse than depressed. I sleep very badly, and in the night I often shed wretched tears. Though I did only what conscience compelled me to do, I suffer all the miseries of remorse. And how can I wish that it should be otherwise? It is better, surely, to be capable of such suffering, than to go one's way in light-hearted egoism. I'm not sure that I don't sometimes ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... your heart, to cultivate a conscience so sensitive that it can conceive the rights of the other man, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... in Comte's mind, four years before the first volume of the "Philosophie Positive" was written; and, naturally, the papal spirit shows itself in that work, not only in the ways I have already mentioned, but, notably, in the attack on liberty of conscience which breaks out in the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... young person with a conscience—of a sort—washed the dishes, since she had given her word to do it. The dishpan was even more unpleasant than experience had foretold for her; and of Marthy's somewhat meager supply there seemed not one clean dish in the house. The sympathy of Billy Louise therefore ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... pleasure of seeing her, and in the 2nd, that I may have a better chance of bringing you back with me. Your promise in my favour was not quite absolute, but if your will is not perverse, you and I will do all in our power to overcome your scruples of conscience. I hope we shall meet next week to talk all this over, till we have tired ourselves with the very idea of my visit before my visit begins. Our invitations for the 19th are arrived, and very curiously are they worded.[113] Mary mentioned ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... species of prop or association or support which threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last era of purely religious literature, the era of English Puritanism, there has been no writer in whose eyes the soul stood ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... was forgotten that civilization itself involves a more or less conscious repeal of "Nature," and that the progress of man depends upon the conquest of himself and of his surroundings. In a better sense of the word, the evolution of man's self-control and conscience is just as "natural" as the gratification of his ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... "The human conscience has fled of late the troublesome domain of conduct for what I should have supposed to be the less congenial field of art: there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that touches dialect, so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are tortured, and the ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... her beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... an elderly unmarried lady, with soft, grey, gentle eyes, came and took possession of my life, my mind, and my conscience for eight hours every day. Her name was Mlle. de Brabender, and she had educated a grand duchess in Russia. She had a sweet voice, an enormous sandy moustache, a grotesque nose, but a way of walking, of expressing herself, and of bowing which simply ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... that the manner in which he had gained possession of the ring would have troubled Mr. Montgomery, but it was many years since he had led an honest life. He had made a living by overreaching others, and his conscience had become so blunted as to occasion him little trouble. He appeared to think that the world owed him a living, and that he was quite justified in collecting the debt in any ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o'clock And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering ...
— Prufrock and Other Observations • T. S. Eliot
... you were any one but yourself, I would let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge on your conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But as you are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be due to myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust he would not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... proposed and discussed. One such plan involves a heavy tax on bachelors. The defect in it lies in the fact that the average bachelor, for obvious reasons, is relatively well to do, and would pay the tax rather than marry. Moreover, the payment of it would help to salve his conscience, which is now often made restive, I believe, by a maudlin feeling that he is shirking his duty to the race, and so he would be confirmed and supported in his determination to avoid the altar. Still further, he would escape the social odium which now ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... my temporal wants, though at the commencement of it I had no certain human prospect for one single shilling: so that, even as it regards temporal things, I had not been in the smallest degree a loser in acting according to the dictates of my conscience; and as it regards spiritual things, the Lord had dealt bountifully with me, and had condescended to use me as an instrument in doing ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... men, and upon all discrimination and healthfulness of thought. When error, in its most extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that the mind was led to the most shocking perversions, and the conscience ensnared ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... given to planning the community either for efficiency or attractiveness. Sinclair Lewis' description of Gopher Prairie in "Main Street" may be overdrawn and unjust to many a rural community, but it describes conditions which are so common that it has aroused the public conscience concerning the lack of civic spirit in ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... He is impenetrable. He will be low all his life, and I refuse any more to sully myself in attempting to lift him. For Silva's sake I must positively break the connection. Heaven knows what I have done for this boy, and will support me in the feeling that I have done enough. My conscience at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... there's some truth in that, sir,' said his faithful friend, reluctantly obliged by her conscience to say ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... assurance of God's mercy. This assurance takes in the confidence that our sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. Never will the conscience trust in God unless it can be sure of God's mercy and promises in Christ. Now all the promises of God lead back to the first promise concerning Christ: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... protection than Cromwell's good-nature when a case of cruelty was distinctly brought within his cognisance. What shall we say, however, of one order or intention of Cromwell's Council in June 1658, which, if not against liberty of conscience in the general sense, was decidedly retrograde in respect of the specific liberty of the press? On the 22nd of that month, nine members being present, though not his Highness, it was agreed, on a report by Mr. Comptroller, i.e. by Lord Jones, from a Committee that had been appointed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... non-sectarian school is not the work of a few advanced thinkers imposed upon a docile country. They would not have been able to create anything enduring if the French conscience had not been ready to follow them. This is what the adversaries of our schools do not wish to understand, cannot understand, or are anxious to conceal from those whom they direct. Certainly they have the right to attempt a reaction according to their own preferences. They have no ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... in pleasure's ring Religion may be blinded: Or if she gie a random sting, It may be little minded: But when on life we're Tempest-driv'n— A conscience but a canker, A correspondence fixed wi' Heav'n, Is sure ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... nothing for a moment, wishing to give Leonore's conscience a chance to begin to prick. Then be ended the silence by saying: "If I had anything that would give you pleasure, I wouldn't make ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... suppose that she also recognized only the egoist's view of duty—of the paramount duty to one's own inclinations; suppose—"Oh, am I so different from him?" she thought, "why cannot I also mistake the urging of desire for the command of conscience—or at least call it that in my mind?" For a minute she struggled desperately with the temptation; and in that minute it seemed to her that the face of Alice Rokeby, with its look of wistful expectancy, of hungry yearning, drifted past ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... tombs they drink. And as devouter Turks first warn their souls To part, before they taste forbidden bowls: So these, when their black crimes they went about, First timely charm'd their useless conscience out. 190 Religion's name against itself was made; The shadow served the substance to invade: Like zealous missions, they did care pretend Of souls in show, but made the gold their end. The incensed powers beheld with scorn from high An heaven ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... a man, a live man. I was in no hurry to go into the cabin, where I knew Wada was unpacking my things, so I paced up and down the deck with the huge Mr. Pike. Huge he was in all conscience, broad-shouldered, heavy-boned, and, despite the profound stoop of his shoulders, fully six ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sling, she had, after the first day or two, returned to all her romping with undiminished ardor, thereby keeping the family in constant terror, lest the necessary appendage be forever disabled. Jean had reported to Bea, the fact that Olive had locked her door and was crying, and with her conscience reproving her, Bea ran hastily up stairs, and knocked at the door. "Olive, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... all things are pure: but unto them that are Defiled and Unbelieving is nothing pure: but even their mind and conscience is Defiled. They profess that they know God; but in Works they Deny Him, being Abominable and Disobedient, and unto ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... of the three was a ragged and dirty-looking boy; the others called him Jim, and he talked with Rollo a good deal. Rollo's conscience reproved him for not leaving them, and going back to his father; but he wanted to stay and hear their talk, and he quieted his conscience by saying to himself that his father told him to treat them civilly. At first ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... 9. Banish a self-conscience spirit—the source of much awkwardness—with a constant aim to make others happy. Remember that it is incumbent upon gentlemen and ladies alike ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... wanted to hear everyone's voice in the next verse," did not appeal very forcibly to her imagination. She fancied Sheldon Corthell doing these things, and could not forbear to smile. She had to admit, despite the protests of conscience, that she did prefer ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... millions of dollars each year, making it essential that we have improved enforcement and new legislative safeguards. The denial of constitutional rights to some of our fellow Americans on account of race—at the ballot box and elsewhere—disturbs the national conscience, and subjects us to the charge of world opinion that our democracy is not equal to the high promise of our heritage. Morality in private business has not been sufficiently spurred by morality in public business. A host of problems ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... he had already given away more information about the Heredith case than his judgment approved or his conscience dictated. But his kindly nature prompted him to help the anxious young man seated in front of him, who had so much more than he to gain ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... U. States and European species, when you have time. Now this leads me to make a very audacious remark in opposition to what I imagine Hooker has been writing (585/1. See Letter 338, Volume I.), and to your own scientific conscience. I presume he has been urging you to finish your great "Flora" before you do anything else. Now I would say it is your duty to generalise as far as you safely can from your as yet completed work. Undoubtedly careful ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Study.—"Del misterio de las conciencias se alimentan las almas superiores," said Victoria in La loca de la casa (IV, 7), and that phrase may serve as a guide to all his writings that are not purely historical. The study of the human conscience, not propaganda, was the central interest of the early novel, Doa Perfecta, just as it was in Electra, and to a far greater degree in ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... the Duke of Hereward before he had committed his honor to my keeping by making me his wife! That course would have saved me then with less of suffering than I have to bear now. But I weakly permitted myself to be forced, with this secret on my conscience, into a marriage with the Duke of Hereward. And now I dare not tell him the truth! And now my first husband has come back and hates me for my inconstancy, and my second husband knows nothing about it! Now to ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... presumably been cut, and that this would explain the silence of the Tsar. Perhaps they still hoped against hope for a conciliatory proposal from Russia. This was the last flicker of their dying pacifism, or the last awakening of their conscience. Their efforts could make no headway against the stubborn opposition of the War Minister and the army chiefs, who represented to the Emperor the dangers of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... lively conception of what Laniger suffers, how should Mordax have any such sympathetic imagination to check him in what he persuades himself is a scourging administered by the qualified man to the unqualified? Depend upon it, his conscience, though active enough in some relations, has never given him a twinge because of his polemical rudeness and even brutality. He would go from the room where he has been tiring himself through the watches of the night in lifting and ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... provinces about 200 years ago, and from these all the rest have sprung. Many belong to the most amiable, intelligent, and respectable classes of the lower and even middle ranks: they love their profession, regard murder as sport, and are never haunted with dreams, or troubled with pangs of conscience during hours of solitude, or in the last moments of life. The victim is an acceptable sacrifice to the goddess Davee, who by some classes is supposed to eat the lifeless body, and thus save her votaries ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... attended the Court as usual to-day; and heard two trials of the same nature as most of the others; distinguished also by the same difficulty of obtaining the truth from most of the witnesses, who are quite indifferent to the responsibility of an oath, because they have no qualms of conscience; but if their priests were to fetish them, it is probable they might be induced to give their testimony more honestly. Sentence was this day awarded to all the prisoners that had been tried, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... forsake forever the child of your prayers. Go to your rest in peace, for God will yet bring him home, after all his wanderings; for Walter Lee, far away, is waking and restless; oppressed with horror at his crime, flying from law and justice, flying from the terrors of a burdened conscience—he ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... her mother so soon that her conscience was more tender than usual, and she did not want to do what she knew her ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... suppose it for argument sake, with Mr. Badmans friends; I say, suppose there be an Hell, and that too, such an one as the Scripture speaks of, one at the remotest distance from God and Life eternall, one where the Worm of a guilty Conscience never dyes, and where the fire of the Wrath ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... so on. Plainly, she regarded it as quite a superior joke that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him in so odd a service. But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a Professor; therefore my conscience was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a belief in the unknown has come to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of religion; or, in other words, that the human conscience is in some manner dependent on supernaturalism for its origin and maintenance, is, with a better and clearer understanding of the past history of the development of the human race, being gradually dispelled. On one point we may reasonably rest assured that the knowledge ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... and something more, a kind of formula for squaring himself with his conscience, a phrase for warding off the devil—as a beggar spits ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... the fleetingness of life and his concern for death. He had never accepted the conditions of man's life or his own character; and his inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate employment of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found respite from these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong study of natural science, in ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... qualities of your son, whether he may be an useful co-adjutor to you there. I suppose him to have taken side with the British, before our Declaration of Independence; and, if this was the case, I respect the candor of the measure, though I do not its wisdom. A right to take the side which every man's conscience approves in a civil contest, is too precious a right, and too favorable to the preservation of liberty, not to be protected by all its well informed friends. The Assembly of Virginia have given sanction to this right in several of their laws, discriminating honorably those who took side against ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Campeggi had spoken to her in the name of the Pope: she only said she thought to abide till death in obedience to the precepts of God and of the Church: she would ask for counsellors from the King, would consult with them, and then communicate to the Holy Father what her conscience bade her. Her consent still remained possible. This gained, the legate would have no need to mention further the validity or invalidity of the dispensation. He was still hoping for it, when Wolsey came to him one morning ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... writers," and the prose of Bacon, Harrington, and Milton is "altogether stiff and pedantic." Hobbes, who whether he should be called a "polite" writer or not, is a master of vigorous English; Clarendon, Addison, and Steele (the last two, surely, were "polite" writers in all conscience) ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... friend." And though the Apostles did likewise evermore and steadfastly teach, that magistrates ought to be obeyed, "that every soul ought to be subject to the higher powers, not only for fear of wrath and punishment, but even for conscience sake;" yet bare they the name to disquiet the people, and to stir up the multitude to rebel. After this sort did Haman specially bring the nation of the Jews into the hatred of the king Assuerus, because, said he, "they were a rebellious and stubborn ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... north suddenly left him, and he went to his bed with the sense of bereavement that had punished him all the preceding week: desperately sad, all but heart-broken, and feeling almost like a culprit, although his conscience, whatever that was worth, was thoroughly at ease, and his ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... tumblers were filled to the brim with inferior but exhilarating champagne—purchased, as they euphemistically put it in the Supply Column, "locally." Lastly, the battalion had several months of hard fighting behind it, probably a full month's rest before it, and the conscience of duty done and recognition earned floating like a halo above it. For the moment memories of Nightmare Wood and the Kidney Bean Redoubt—more especially the latter—were effaced. Even the sorrowful gaps in the ring round the table seemed ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... me, and then judge me. Twelve or fourteen years ago, there was a son—an only son—who had a noble mother. She had sacrificed everything for him—the time came when he had to sacrifice something for her. It was a point of conscience; light, perhaps, then—but still it caused him a struggle. He must conquer it, and he did so. He stifled all scruples, pressed down all doubts, and became a minister of a Church in whose faith he ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the penalty of," said Bathsheba, firmly. "You know, Gabriel, this is what I cannot get off my conscience—that I once seriously injured him in sheer idleness. If I had never played a trick upon him, he would never have wanted to marry me. Oh if I could only pay some heavy damages in money to him for the harm I did, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... but in the light of a discarded mistress, all her virtue vanished. Innate in the mind of the worst of men is the timid hesitation before he brands a virtuous woman; but when once he knows that she has fallen, conscience lifts, like a feather on the breeze. With a light heart, he reaps the harvest of tares which some other than himself must be blamed for sowing, and with a light heart he goes his ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... memorial, the same severe restrictions on the discussions or publications in religious matters as were already ordered in those concerning politics. But both Bonaparte and his Minister in the affairs of the Church, Portalis, refused the introduction of what they called a tyranny on the conscience. Caprara then addressed himself to the ex-Bishop Talleyrand, who, on this occasion, was more explicit ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... chosen and of the deepest interest. Happiness is pursued by all, though too many mistake the road by which the greatest good is to be successfully followed. Its abode is not always in the palace or the cottage. Its residence is the human heart, and its inseparable companion is a quiet conscience. Of this, Religion is the surest and safest foundation. The individual who turns his thoughts frequently to an omnipotent omniscient and all perfect being, who feels his dependence on, and his infinite obligations to that being will avoid that course ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... 20 years ago that we embarked on a program of trying to aid the developing nations. We knew then that we could not live in good conscience as a rich enclave on an earth that was seething ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... please upon the object or the advantages, which he reaps from it. It is the same case, if justice, according to the system of certain philosophers, should be esteemed an artificial and not a natural virtue. For then honour, and custom, and civil laws supply the place of natural conscience, and produce, in some degree, the same effects. This in the mean time is certain, that the mention of the property naturally carries our thought to the proprietor, and of the proprietor to the property; ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter. Remember you are working with green trainmen and don't expect ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... you shut fast the doors of your lips, and inwardly sigh for a good, stout, brawny, malignant foe, who, under any and every circumstance, will design you harm, and on whom you can lavish your lusty blows with a hearty will and a clear conscience. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... easy in the town, and had Sergeant Crisp been minded for the mere closing of his eyes or turning of his back upon occasion he might have retired early from the Force with a competency. Unhappily for Sergeant Crisp, however, there stood in the pathway of his fortune the awkward fact of his conscience and his oath of service. Consequently he was forced to grub along upon the munificent bounty of the daily pay with which Her Majesty awarded the faithful service of the non-coms. in her North West Mounted ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... precious I salved my conscience about it as we drew up in Pervyse and decided to make tea. I saw a movement among the ruins and there, peeping round one of the walls, was a ragged hungry looking infant about eight years of age. We made ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... little inclined to be deceived by the customary exaggerations of politicians, and little disposed to believe in sudden conversions, had hoped that the immense effort of this Great War was to awaken the deadened conscience of the world; to leave a permanent improvement in social and international relations; making class and individual and sex competition, as also national rivalry, a less pronounced feature in the new order; ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... advance? (Since I say 'tis plain, glory is never this way to be achiev'd.) Is it to add more thousands to those fortune has already so lavishly bestow'd on you? Oh my Philander, that's to double the vast crime, which reaches already to damnation: would your honour, your conscience, your Christianity, or common humanity, suffer you to enlarge your fortunes at the price of another's ruin; and make the spoils of some honest, noble, unfortunate family, the rewards of your treachery? Would you build your fame on such a ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... had always been furious at "the huge sum of money to be advanced, nay, given, to the States," as he phrased it. "It is so far out of all square," he had said, "as on my conscience I cannot think that ever they craved it 'animo obtinendi,' but only by that objection to discourage me from any thought of getting any repayment of my debts from them when they shall be in peace. . . . Should I ruin myself for maintaining ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... more good helpin' you catch your man than you'll do helpin' ME! So clear out, both of ye!" A feminine audacity that recalled the deputy to himself, and left him no choice but to accept Ira's aid. I do not know whether Mrs. Beasley felt a pang of conscience as her husband arose gratefully and limped after the deputy; I only know that she stood looking at them from the door, ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... feelings of indignation and abhorrence, by his well- disposed subjects of all classes and grades, who are thereby left to the mercy of men without any feeling of security in their tenure of office, any scruples of conscience, or feelings of humanity, or of honour. So inveterate is the system of misgovernment—so deeply are all those, now employed in the administration, interested in maintaining its worst abuses—and so fruitless is it to expect the King to remove ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... afore you get round the first point, that 'ud take your breath; besides, when the winds begin to rush there'll be a crashing down of trees, and broken limbs will be flying thick enough. No, no—unsartain as the river is, you'd better keep still. I don't want your death on my conscience, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... goose, nor hen is here. These are the phantoms of your brain, And your sons lick their lips in vain.' 20 'O gluttons!' says the drooping sire, 'Restrain inordinate desire. Your liqu'rish taste you shall deplore, When peace of conscience is no more. Does not the hound betray our pace, And gins and guns destroy our race? Thieves dread the searching eye of power, And never feel the quiet hour. Old age (which few of us shall know) Now puts a period ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... does. I hated displeasing Mr. van Buren; but when Nell said, "Phil, you'll stick by me, won't you?" I couldn't desert her, especially as I feel that, for some reason or other, she's as restless and unhappy as I am. It may be the poor dear's conscience that troubles her; but I sympathize with her just the same, for mine is far from clear. I have such hard, uncharitable thoughts toward one of my own sex—one perhaps not as much older than I am, as ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Marfa Timofyevna? you've no conscience!" she cried, and a crimson flush instantly ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Cutty, his conscience pricking him. But he welcomed that "Olga." It would naturally put a damper on Kitty's interest. "There's Harrison ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... should be misplaced and that some should be neglected by the civil authorities, but public interest should not allow such conditions to persist. Social sensitiveness to the hard lot of the child is a product of the modern conscience. Time was when the State remanded all chronic dependents to the doubtful care of the almshouse, and children were herded indiscriminately with their elders, as child delinquents were herded in the prisons with hardened criminals. Idiots, epileptics, and deformed and crippled children were ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... bonnets had to go. It was not likely that this would be satisfactory in the quarter where the bonnets were expected. I never heard whether or no. I only know that I was enabled afterwards—but long afterwards—to satisfy my own conscience about the matter, by paying the damage claimed ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... of the rhythmical and regular conventions which he should thus have associated with himself. He had broken with his fatherland, he had thrown over dynastic laws, he had gone by his will alone, and no red tape. Perhaps there was the solution. He had gone by his conscience. I have said I was convinced of his conscientiousness, and possibly in these strange departures from the code of his fathers he was following a new and internal guide, to the detriment of his own material interests. He had abandoned the essence ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Does not her conscience smite her For one who hourly pines, Thinking her bright eyes brighter Than any star that shines - I mean of course the writer Of ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... the present day. No response are we to expect from that quarter, concerning our bank-laws and our corn-laws; our systems of credit and of commerce; our endless disquisitions on the balance of power and of parties, on the rights of suffrage and of conscience. While we reserve to the theorist the privilege of adorning his theme by allusions to the polity of Lycurgus and Numa, we are sensible that the practical statesman who trusts himself to such examples will be constantly liable to be deluded by false parallels and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... conscience began to reproach him. What! was he going to accept all this kindness, like a rogue receiving money under false pretences? He was shocked, and ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... had many qualms of conscience over what she had done. But Judge Pennington kept her secret well, telling only Fred; and when he congratulated Jennie over her act, she felt relieved; for young Shackelford was not only known as a ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... of these fellers with a conscience," said Three-Finger, "you can send Henry back to the Sheriff. But I won't have Greasy Gus putting a trick like this over on me! ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... him on the point, but he suffered her inquiry with imperturbable sangfroid, and she found herself no wiser respecting the cause of his annoyance. Painful twinges of conscience came during the ensuing days, when she found herself in her fiance's company, but she never once seriously contemplated dropping the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... many lobbyists in its time, and it keeps on knowing them. The striking increase in legislation that aims to restrict unlawful or improper practices in business, the awakening of the public conscience, has caused a greater demand than ever for influence at the national capital, for these restrictive measures must be either killed or emasculated to a point of uselessness by that process which is the salvation of many a corrupt ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... Jefferson's heart was not in violent methods of dealing with his fellow-men in Barbary. He thought our objects might be accomplished by a display of force better and more cheaply than by active measures. A dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2] made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... if it wanted to. We are now in the nature of business concerns, run by Directors safe in office till General Meetings, which cannot be held till after the War. But I am not greatly alarmed. When the War is over, the pendulum will swing back; the individual conscience which is our guarantee for democracy and friendship will come into its own again, and shape our destinies in common towards freedom and humanity. The English-speaking democracies, in firm union, can and ought to be the unshifting ballast ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... superstitious. I would make him look at me. I would seize his hand and kneel before him, and tell him I should die if he did not speak to me once more. Once more! Just once, out of years, out of forever. I had thrown duty, conscience, thought to the winds. I had but one fear—that we should be finally separated without that word spoken, that look exchanged. I said to myself again and again, I shall die, if I cannot speak to him again. Beyond that I did not look. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... bons-mots of his friends. We are afraid that we must, after all, regard the whole Selwyn class as little better than the brutes in their stables, or on their hearth-rugs; with the advantage to the brutes of following their natural appetites, having no twinges of either conscience or the gout, and not being from time to time stripped by their friends, or plundered by the Jews. The closing hours of the horse or the dog are also, perhaps, more complacent in general, and their deaths are less a matter of rejoicing to those who are to succeed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... and demeanor before the diet, and the firmness with which he held his ground and refused to retract, all make a striking picture. He was not allowed to defend his opinions. "Unless I be convinced," he said, "by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything, for my conscience is a captive to God's word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. There I take my stand. I can do no otherwise. So ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... up Mrs. Madison's placid weather talk as if it had been a flaunting challenge; he made it a matter of conscience and for argument; for he was a doughty champion, it appeared, when nothings were in question, one of those stern men who will have accuracy in the banal, insisting upon portent in talk meant to be slid over as mere ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... is, that we witness that the grey horse Derrish, of Mahomet Bey, is of the first breed of Nedgdee horses, whose mother is the grey mare, Hadha the famous, and whose father is the bay horse, Dabrouge, of the horses of the tribe Benihaled. We testify on our conscience and fortune, that he is the breed concerning which the prophet said, 'the true runners, when they run, strike fire; they grant prosperity until the day of judgment.' We have testified what is known, and ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... reconcile to our conscience deeds of such grave injustice, not to say crimes, without recognizing them as such, what minor forms of oppression shall we not readily condone in our dealings with ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... of a stout mind, waits prayerfully till liberty shall be proclaimed! If the slaveholder ever lived in dread, it was not so much from what he expected as from what he knew that he deserved. But the African is more merciful than the conscience of a slaveholder. Blessed are these meek ones: they shall yet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... the deeds proceed from the will, then it at once attaches a responsibility to them. Place before the mind a murder committed by a party through pure physical compulsion brought to bear on the arm that inflicts the blow, and the conscience says, here no guilt is attachable. But let the same murder be done with the thorough consent of the will, the conscience stops not to inquire whether this consent has been caused or no."(43) Thus, after all his dissent from Edwards, he returns precisely ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... which it would be necessary to answer satisfactorily before we could be truly entitled to take measure of the world's goodness to us in return; for surely it is not to be expected that the world is to pay in mere expectancy: time enough, in all conscience, when the service has been rendered, or at soonest, when a reasonable ground of hope has been established that it will not be withheld or performed slightingly. Only too much room there is to fear that, if these questions were put ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... his glory and all his driving wretchedness at Guinneys, in the State of Virginia. I own that for some days past the potential African, 'standin' in de mill pond longer than he oughter' had been lying somewhat heavily on my conscience. My acquaintance with our dark brethren since arriving in this country had not only been necessarily limited, but scarcely of a nature to give me any practical insight into his real condition since he has been a free man—free to work or starve; ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... The wildest and most raging attacks of the time allow him these merits: and not to let him have 'em in their full extent, remembering in what a (politically) wicked time he lived, would lie upon my conscience heavily. The libel he was imprisoned for when he died, was on the Queen of France; and the French government interested themselves warmly to procure his release,—which I think they might have done, but for Lord Grenville." I was more successful ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that, my son!' exclaimed Kate. 'Leave him to his conscience, and to GOD. 'Vengeance is mine, I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and connived at, or rather encouraged, their intention of carrying away the child of his benefactor who, if left behind, was old enough to have described the scene of blood which he had witnessed. The only palliative which the ingenuity of Glossin could offer to his conscience was, that the temptation was great, and came suddenly upon him, embracing as it were the very advantages on which his mind had so long rested, and promising to relieve him from distresses which must have ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... himself than he had vouchsafed up to the present moment. Contrary to the common law, the guest must be rated as guilty until he had proved himself innocent. Yet as he darted a glance at the earnest young face bending over the workbench Willie's conscience smote him and he questioned whether he might not be doing his comrade a dire injustice. The thought caused him to flush uncomfortably, and he flushed still redder when Bob suddenly straightened up and ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... William—I have been lingering on these things because it is so hard to have to tell you what passed between me and Kitty. Oh! my dear, dear son, take courage. Even now everything is not lost. Her conscience may awaken at the last moment; this bad man may abandon his pursuit of her; I may still succeed in bringing her back to you. But I am in terrible fear—and I must tell you ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... broken-hearted child To sleep in peace beneath the sod, And he who first her heart beguiled To cope with conscience ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... except thou repent. This, I trust, will no man denie to be the propre office of all Goddes messagers to preache (as I haue said) repentance and remission of synnes. But nether of both can be done, except the conscience of the offenders be accused and conuicted of transgression. For howe shall any man repent not knowing wher in he hath offended? And where no repentance is founde[p], there can be no entrie to grace. ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... mental achievements, defeat of opponents, wealth, pleasure, gratification of taste and longings, all these combined cannot give to the human soul that thrilling happiness which kindles and glows and burns into life when Conscience whispers, "Well done!" and we know that some thought or word or deed of ours ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... further question. Why is there in us this sense of imperfection, of incompleteness—of ideals always away in the front that we can never even approximately reach on earth? Look at this conscience which we have just been thinking about. It is always holding high above us an ideal of perfect goodness and insisting that we must strive after it. But we can never get even near it on earth. The very best ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... beside the orangery. He had to unbolt the door, and as he did so a dog in one of the basement rooms began to bark. But there could be no flinching, though the whole thing was of an imprudence which pricked his conscience. To slip along the shadowed side of the orangery, to cross the space of clouded light beyond, and gain the darkness of the ilex avenue beyond was soon done. Then he heard a soft laugh, and a little figure fled before him. He followed ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... anger, than finding in the schoolmen his genus and difference? See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valour in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant man, carry not an apparent shining; and, contrarily, the remorse of conscience in OEdipus; the soon-repenting pride in Agamemnon; the self-devouring cruelty in his father Atreus; the violence of ambition in the two Theban brothers; the sour sweetness of revenge in Medea; and, to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho, and our Chaucer's Pandar, so expressed, that we now use their ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... (30) (45) (43) in which In his new post, his restless and place he had so ill fortune (26) unquiet imagination found (his working and unquiet fancy opportunity for creating and raising and infusing a thousand diffusing a thousand conscientious scruples of conscience, which (5) scruples that had not been brought they had not brought over with over, or ever even heard of, by the them, nor heard of before) (19) colonists. His government proved a that he unsatisfied ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... with dependents, insurance is of course a necessity. How much it should be, and what its form, are matters for his judgment and conscience, and according to his circumstances. The services do not try to tell a man how he should provide for his family. Men of honor need no such reminder, though they may be bothered by the question: "How much can I afford?" On that point, sufficient to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... others have fallen down for fear of God. But God is not regardless of that which ye do. Do ye therefore desire that the Jews should believe you? yet a part of them heard the word of God, and then perverted it, after they had understood it, against their own conscience. And when they meet the true believers, they say, We believe: but when they are privately assembled together, they say, Will ye acquaint them with what God hath revealed unto you, that they may dispute with you concerning it in the presence of your Lord? Do ye not therefore understand? ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... little exertion on the part of the easy-going inhabitants. The trouble was that the products of their industry unfortunately appealed so strongly to the appetite of the anthropoids that, to gratify it, the brutes were willing to swim a channel a mile wide. And the trouble was serious enough, in all conscience, for—as I gradually learned, in the course of frequent conversations with the chief—the apes not only destroyed far more than they ate, but, until my introduction of the bow and arrow as a weapon, they were only driven off with the utmost difficulty, and frequently with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... revelations flitting o'er the face, From the soul's inner symmetry; from love Too deep and pure to utter, had she words; From the divine desire to know; to prove All objects brought within her dawning ken; From frolic mirth, not heedless but most apt; From sense of conscience, shown in little things So early; and from infant ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... Lincoln, after their yearly custom, stole a little Christian boy, tortured and crucified him, and flung him into a pit, where his mother found the body. This is in all probability one of the many cruel slanders circulated against the Jews during the Middle Ages, to reconcile the Christian conscience to the Christian maltreatment of that long-suffering race. Such stories are related of various mediaeval innocents, in various lands and centuries, and may be classed together, until better evidence to the contrary presents itself, as malicious falsehood. This ballad should be compared, of course, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... he made his will, and had it signed by all the magistrates as witnesses. But he was prevented from proceeding further by Agrippina, accused by her own guilty conscience, as well as by informers, of a variety of crimes. It is agreed that he was taken off by poison; but where, and by whom administered, remains in uncertainty. Some authors say that it was given him as he was feasting with the priests in the Capitol, by the eunuch Halotus, his taster. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... we are so deeply degraded that we do not see the necessity of a justification. The majority of people in contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery without the slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so to speak, the conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code. But in this matter neither of these consciences is struck. There is not a being in society who blushes at it. ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... in the days before the Headmasters' Conference had abolished the knock-out blow, and a boxer might still pay attentions to the point of his opponent's jaw with an easy conscience. ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... do not agree in this circumstance, and pretend that Little Thumb never robbed the Ogre at all, and that he only thought he might very justly, and with a safe conscience, take off his boots of seven leagues, because he made no other use of them but to run after little children. These folks affirm that they are very well assured of this, and the more as having drunk and eaten often at the fagot-maker's house. They aver that when Little Thumb had taken off the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... us took our stand by the window and waited for the principals in the drama about to be enacted in the clearing. I confess that my conscience was ill at ease; why, I knew not. I was dreading something, I knew not what. The inn-keeper's hand trembled ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... or serious purpose. She saw nothing but its hypocrisy, and those amiable compromises, which at any other time would have amused her, now revolted her. She was in a condition of moral hypersensitiveness, and everything hurt her: her conscience was raw. Her eyes were opened to certain facts which hitherto had escaped her in ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... institutions of California, and to see that the religious rights of the people are in the amplest manner preserved to them, the constitution of the United States allowing every man to worship his Creator in such a manner as his own conscience may dictate ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... residence of his brother Sankha. At that time, however, Sankha had gone out of his asylum on no fixed purpose. Arrived at the asylum of his brother, Likhita plucked many ripe fruits. Obtaining them the regenerate Likhita began to eat them without any qualms of conscience. While still employed in the act of eating, Sankha came back to his retreat. Beholding him eating, Sankha addressed his brother, saying, 'Whence have these fruits been obtained and for what reason art thou eating them?' Approaching his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of the American dinner-table. A palatable table water, like Apollinaris, well iced, is an elegant substitute for wine when habit or conscience ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... that Denmark, Austria, and France were resisting the 'rights' of Prussia, and that war to secure them was 'defensive,' 'forced' on the King, and just. The successful issues confirmed William's conscience and proved that Bismarckian ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... of the conscience at last, and even a prison house with its corrections may be a door of escape from that other prison of the sinful soul from which no one can go forth, be he culprit or juror, counsellor or judge, until his pardon is pronounced by ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... set on foot, all being alike ready to bear testimony to his courtesy and seamanship. On deck, the men began to holystone the planks, polish up the brasswork, and make everything shipshape for port. The middies are at work here on the poop, each "with a sharp knife and a clear conscience," cutting away pieces of tarry rope. New ratlines are being fastened up across the shrouds. The standing rigging is re-tarred and shines black. The deck is fresh scraped as well as the mizen-mast, and the white paint-pot has been ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... at last. "I wonder what weighty matter is crushing you to the earth. If you've got anything on your conscience, Sarge, for goodness' sake confess. I'll give you absolution, if you like, and then perhaps you'll be ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Not so sir, I do care for something: but in my conscience sir, I do not care for you: if that be to care for nothing sir, I would it would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... not the punishment from men I am afraid of," Gavin said, bitterly, "but from my conscience. No, that is not true. I do fear exposure, but for my mother's sake. Look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last I seemed able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... delicate question) have you almost all of you had it? Ladies, I do not say that you are a society of Vestals—but the chronicle of a hundred years since contains such an amount of scandal, that you may be thankful you did not live in such dangerous times. No: on my conscience, I believe that men and women are both better; not only that the Susannas are more numerous, but that the Elders are not nearly so wicked. Did you ever hear of such books as Clarissa, Tom Jones, Roderick Random; paintings ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... advise you to resign your seat!" said Mr. Morris, bluntly. "You have been elected by an order in whose principles you no longer believe. Should you continue their representative your conscience will be continually at war with your duty. Should you break away from your constituency you will offer an example of insubordination and lawlessness which may have the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt—who still resides at Wilmington—and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion; he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... boundless horizon which gives the eye a sense of freedom and independence, the blue atmosphere of the sea which contributes something metaphysical to the humdrum of existence—on this soil a grave race flourishes, of quick conscience and serious life. The old saying Frisia non cantat marks the lack of exuberance and of the spirit of revelry. But shy reticence finds compensation in good-natured humor. Unenthusiastic but substantial realism, speculative meditation, and a certain didactic tone make the Low German ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... what I felt when he came to me and told me that perhaps it might be so;—but told me also that he would escape from it if it were possible. I was the Lady Macbeth of the occasion all over;—whereas he was so scrupulous, so burdened with conscience! As for me, I would have taken it by any means. Then it was that the old Duke played the part of the three witches to a nicety. Well, there hasn't been any absolute murder, and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... sensitive couple, two access, accession future, subsequent allusion, illusion, delusion folk, family conscience, consciousness evidence, testimony identity, identification party, person, firm limit, limitation plenty, many, enough of majority, plurality portion, part materialize, appear solicitation, solicitude invent, discover human, humane prescribe, proscribe ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... almost there this time," she whispered. "My conscience has been tormenting me to think of—of Solomon's bein' alone in there with—with THAT, and I almost made up my mind to sing out and ask if he was all right. But I didn't have to, thank goodness. His light's still lit and I heard him ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to a bad woman, and yours for comparing myself to a great man. She really was a second mother to me. I have a real affection for her memory. I therefore could not possibly write about her unless I wrote in her praise; and all the praise which I could give to her writings, even after straining my conscience in her favour, would be far indeed from satisfying any of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... principles which first bring them together. No political party can or ought to exist when one of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the right to worship God "according to the dictate of one's own conscience," or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever. Nevertheless, if a sect sets up its laws as binding above the State laws, wherever the two come in conflict this claim must be resisted and suppressed ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... to writing. "What is the use," he would urge, "of my making a statement? People incline to believe the most horrible reports concerning a man, and they will not credit what I say in my own defense. My conscience is clear. I am an old man, and am calmly awaiting my death. God is my judge, and it long ago ceased to trouble me that people ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... terrible recrimination on the part of the Indians. Should we hear of any atrocities committed by the Arickaras upon captive white men, let this signal and recent provocation be borne in mind. Individual cases of the kind dwell in the recollections of whole tribes; and it is a point of honor and conscience to revenge them. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... this statute, so long as the sovereign was actually resident within them—which last clause probably showed that the entire Draconian enactment was but a farce. It is quite certain that it was inoperative, and that it did no more than express the conscience of the legislature—in deference to PRINCIPLE, 'which ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Because my conscience is so constituted that it puts nothing above itself. I feel it upon me as the headland can feel the lighthouse which is upon it. All life is an abyss, and conscience ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... of Saxony, Catholic (Sham-Catholic) King of Poland, for its Official Head; "August the Physically Strong," a man highly unconcerned for matters Evangelical! So that the nibblings go on worse and worse. An offence to all Protestant Rulers who had any conscience; at length an unbearable on to Friedrich Wilhelm, who, alone of them all, decided to intervene effectually, and say, at whatever risk there might be, We will ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... condition of things that I cast my first vote in November, 1847, shortly after I became of age. It was for the Whig Governor. The Whig Party was already divided into two sections, one known as "Cotton Whigs," and the other as "Conscience Whigs." These names had been suggested in a debate in the State Senate in which Mr. Thomas G. Carey, an eminent Boston merchant, had deprecated some proposed anti- slavery resolutions by saying that they were likely to make an unfavorable impression in the South, and to be an injury ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... you not contrive to get rid of this frantic boy for me? In conscience, I cannot kill him; and yet," added he, with a coldly menacing expression, "he annoys ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Israel Putnam, who never went about looking for trouble, nor gave it more than a scant welcome as a guest. Possessed of sturdy common sense, an unblemished character, and a conscience "void of offence," Old Put did not long harbor the hasty words of Hamilton, nor dwell upon the tacit reprimand of his chief. He still sat astride his "hobby-horse," as Hamilton had contemptuously termed his desire for descending upon New York, and as soon as the latter had departed ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... partner, "as James C. Carter pointed out, ninety-nine per cent of all law is unwritten. What keeps most people straight is not criminal statutes but their own sense of decency, conscience or whatever you may choose to call it. Doubtless you recall the famous saying of Diogenes Laertius: 'There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.' I see that, ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train |
