Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Conscience   /kˈɑnʃəns/   Listen
Conscience

noun
1.
Motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions.  Synonyms: moral sense, scruples, sense of right and wrong.
2.
Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct.
3.
A feeling of shame when you do something immoral.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Conscience" Quotes from Famous Books



... won't do it," said Mr. Middleton, abashed at Achmed's reproof, a reproof his conscience told ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... and the achievement of it also a contribution to character. So St. Paul assures us that all things work together for good for those that love God. "The willingness," says Hocking, "to confront every evil, in ourselves and outside ourselves, with the blunt, factual conscience of Science; willingness to pay the full causal price for the removal of the blemish; this kind of integrity can never be dispensed ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... occurred to him that although her English was perfect, she might be an utter stranger to the country, unthinkably abandoned, with sufficient means to salve her betrayer's conscience. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... learn that other nations have the right to live, and that no country can wrong another through force of arms without suffering for it in the end. In a blunted conscience, in the loss of the sympathy of the rest of the world, in a lessening of the Christ-spirit of doing good to others, the nation which resorts to force to gratify its own selfish ends, like the individual, ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... it used to do at nights in his lifetime, to call Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal said, that being alone with the dead on that floor of the tower (for naebody cared to wake Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse), he had never daured to answer the call, but that now his conscience checked him for neglecting his duty; for, "though death breaks service," said MacCallum, "it shall never break my service to Sir Robert; and I will answer his next whistle, so be you ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled my conscience a little; but I said nothing, the money being hers, not mine; still, how much good it might have done ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... some long way ahead of us, whose conscience was already reproaching her for leaving us, and in answer to her "What has become of my poor girls?" ran down the road to find us, for Lucy thinks the world can't keep on moving without us. When she met us, she walked by the cart, and it was with difficulty we persuaded her to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... prudent to maintain, that the author of the Mishna was ignorant of Jewish customs, and that the writers of the Gospels were perfectly acquainted with them; and that therefore every good Christian was bound in conscience not to ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... Faust, or a Melmoth; and to-day the band is broken up or, at any rate, dispersed. Its members have quietly returned beneath the yoke of the Civil Code; much as Morgan, the Achilles of piracy, gave up buccaneering to be a peaceable planter; and, untroubled by qualms of conscience, sat himself down by the fireside to dispose of blood-stained booty acquired by the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... free-thinker, and so far more entertaining to Pope, even whilst partially dissenting, than Atterbury, whose clerical profession laid him under restraints of decorum, and latterly, there is reason to think, of conscience. ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... lawyer had no remorse of conscience, in swearing that the note had never been his, but the tavern-keeper and two witnesses swore to his having given it, and the poor fellow was condemned to recash and pay expenses. Having not a cent, he was allowed to go, for it so happened that the gaol was not ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... to show me such respect. Well, I'll not be behindhand in expressing my regret for my hastiness—asking his pardon; and from henceforth we will be good friends and kinsmen, and I shall be able to rest in the Lord with an easy conscience. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... fashionable barber, and his old-fashioned high "stock" exchanged for a modern scarf, in the centre of which gleamed a modern scarf-pin. He ran lightly up the steps of the academy and inquired for Miss May. Courtesy, as his uneasy conscience told him, dictated an inquiry for Miss Eldridge also, but he compounded with conscience: he would ask to see her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... not cast away peculiar opportunities that may never come again. You know not when your last Sabbath with your people may come. Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart full of God's Spirit, is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. This was my great fault in the ministry. Remember it is God, and not man, that must have the glory. It is not much speaking, but much faith, that is needed. Do not ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... the conquest of my deep depression. If I did this from conscience in private, from a sense of obligation to him in public I reiterated my efforts, as I received from him all the condoling softness and attention he could possibly have bestowed upon me had my affliction been equal or even greater than ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... turning away with a smile, "I see that the king's conscience hath a discreet keeper. Pardon me, Edward, now that he hath sufficiently surveyed his shoon, must marvel at this prolonged colloquy. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... De Danan, who represent the gods of the historic ages. Had the advent of exact genealogy been delayed, and the creative imagination of the bards suffered to work on for a couple of centuries longer, unchecked by the historical conscience, Cuculain's human origin would, perhaps, have been forgotten, and he would have been numbered amongst the Tuatha De Danan, probably, as the son of Lu Lamfada and the Moreega, his patron deities. It was, indeed, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... wi' awe, sittin' there sae helpless in his chair, an' no fleid to be left alane. He had lang white hair, an' a saft bonny face 'at would hae made 'im respeckit by onybody, an' aye when we speired if he wasna fleid to be left alane, he said, 'Them 'at has a clear conscience has ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... she took deep, grateful puffs, which she wholly enjoyed, she soon let it go out; neither did she trouble to relight it, nor did she pay any attention to Miss Toombs's remarks. Mavis's physical content was by no means reflected in her mind. Her conscience was deeply troubled by the fact of her having, as it were, sailed with her benefactress ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... and 18, 1871. "With regard to the evolution of conscience the reviewer thinks that Mr. Darwin comes much nearer to the 'kernel of the psychological problem' than many of his predecessors. The second article contains a good discussion of the bearing of the book on the question of design, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... the poor baker's wife: he beats the dog into silence, then grows remorseful and wishes "that I had given him no blow," or that the dog might at least give him back the blows. His thought that the dog might be pretending its pain, he designates a subtle subterfuge of his troubled conscience, and Goethe, in the review mentioned above, exclaims, "Afine pendant to ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... inhabited country again, I will make inquiry after him or his heirs, and restore to them twice or three times the value of the wine." This pleased the old man, he gave an approving nod to the Knight, and drained his glass with a better conscience and a lighter heart. But Undine said to Huldbrand, "Do as you like with your money, you may make what compensation you please; but as to setting out and wandering after him, that was hastily said. I should cry ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... secretaryship to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere through the revenge of Sir George More, whose daughter Donne had married in secret because of her father's opposition. Dependent thereafter for years on the generous kindness of unrelated friends, he yet for conscience' sake refused to take orders when a good living was offered him; and it was only after prolonged thought that he yielded to the importunity of King James, who was so convinced of his surpassing fitness for ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... condition of spirits, Zack's conscience upbraided him soundly for having thought of deceiving Valentine by keeping him in ignorance of what had happened. Now that Mat seemed, by his long absence, to have deserted Kirk Street for ever, there was a double attraction and hope for the weary and ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... for official judgment or publicity of facts which, if made available, would supply evidence of infidelity. In the operation of this machinery, there has not been the means provided for effective official scrutiny and the public conscience ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... a print which prints, a surface which heats and a smoke which smokes, all this makes silver and gold is not cheaper not so much cheaper that there is no clatter. All the conscience which tells that little tongue to tickle is the one that does not refer to teeth. To remember, to forget, to silence all the mistakes, to cause perfection and indignation and to be sweet smelling, to fasten ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... equal terms as men. There are 1,000 women in a membership of 10,000. Notwithstanding the hard work these two societies are doing, there is nothing like the response there should be from women clerks. It is only the exceptional woman clerk who has yet developed anything like a corporate conscience. The reason is partly that she is often an isolated being. Where there is a large number of clerks together, as in the Civil Service, there is no lack ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... impossibility of contact between his nature and theirs, and as time went on drew more and more within himself. The life of Edgar the Dreamer became more and more secret. So often however, did the warning against his idle habit fall upon his ears that the plastic conscience of childhood made note of it—confusing the will of a blind human guardian with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by parental ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... Friday,' and at once sent off a note to Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold four or ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... his best work. He had a remarkable gift of producing likenesses at once striking and favorable, and of always seizing the finest expression of which a face was capable; and none could ever complain that Lawrence had not done justice to the very best look they ever wore. Lawrence's want of conscience with regard to the pictures which he undertook and never finished, is difficult to account for by any plausible explanation. The fact is notorious, that in various instances, after receiving the price of a portrait, and beginning ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... profusion and superiority of her dough-nuts, hence our soubriquet—"Dough-nut Hall." And, seeing that Mercy was only scalded half to death, the guilty culprit, who insisted that the kettle was "too heavy for a woman to lift," escaping unhurt, that is bodily—his remorse of conscience being truly pitiable. No; none of all this, with long, ugly sentences, shall you have; no, nor a detail of his many daily, hourly, and almost momently, misadventures; how once, when we were sitting in Miss Elliott's room, in he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... men this hint of report from the spies of Government might bring dismay and apprehension, but to Bosambo, whose conscience was clear, they ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... hoped that we might never meet again; it has turned out otherwise. Against his own will he stood before me. Too literally, perhaps, I have observed my promise never to admit him into conversation with me. My conscience and the feelings of the moment kept me silent toward him at the time, and now I have nothing more to say. I have taken upon myself, under the accidental impulse of the moment, a difficult vow, which if it had been formed deliberately, might perhaps be painful ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... said Curdie, who that moment entered at the opposite corner of the hall. 'I speak of the butler in particular when I say that I know more evil of him than of any of the rest. He will not let either his own conscience or my messenger speak to him: I therefore now speak myself. I proclaim him a villain, and a traitor to His Majesty the king. But what better is any one of you who cares only for himself, eats, drinks, takes good money, and gives vile service in return, stealing and wasting the king's ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... Firstly, many servants, whose time with their masters had expired, on account of the good opportunity to plant tobacco here, afterwards families and finally entire colonies, forced to quit that place both to enjoy freedom of conscience and to escape from the insupportable government of New England and because many more commodities were easier to be obtained here than there, so that in place of seven farms and two or three plantations which were here, one saw thirty farms, as well ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... arising from popular discontent as an argument for severity; but that it is unparliamentary and indecorous to urge that same danger as an argument for conciliation? I, Sir, do entertain great apprehension for the fate of my country. I do in my conscience believe that, unless the plan proposed, or some similar plan, be speedily adopted, great and terrible calamities will befall us. Entertaining this opinion, I think myself bound to state it, not as a threat, but as a reason. I support this bill because it will improve ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... accustomed to explain to others the object of his proceedings. He had good reasons in his own estimation for everything that he did. They were possibly conscientious; but then his conscience might have been a very erring guide, and led him far wrong, as is the case with many other people in ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny de—-fiance to the needles of a thrust-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... was a reducing plant of the Natural Gas Company. The letter says, "It was reported to Constable Moorehead that some men were suffocating in the high-pressure station and he immediately rode over." He had no orders to go except from his own conscience, but there was no hesitation, though he knew the supreme danger. The letter goes on. "There was a disconnected four-inch pipe, with a pressure of 125 pounds to the inch, in the building, and Constable Moorehead could see one of the bodies moving and he thought there was life." It was probably ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... well as death: Not, I should say, for him whose bosom feeleth No true repentance, or no real faith; But he who boldly enters, who revealeth His sins, confessing them with penitent breath, Shall see them all forgiven, his conscience clear, And have alive ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... little over the words. "It's all of us or none of us," he said. "Come on, boys. My conscience is clear!" ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... read, in Harmer's Miscellaneous Works, that 'he was a gentleman of fortune and education, very zealous for the Congregational plan of church government and discipline, and a sufferer in its bonds for a good conscience'—what am I? ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... 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 ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... admit of easy conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone, of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that this history was ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... says (1 Tim. 1:5): "The end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience," i.e. "from hope," according to a gloss. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... A quaint, pathetic figure, this of uncle John, with his dung cart and his inventions; and the romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze about the Lost Tribes which seemed to the worthy man the key of all perplexities; and his quiet conscience, looking back on a life not altogether vain, for he was a good son to his father while his father lived, and when evil days approached, he had proved himself a ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... takes place a day later in John's sick-room. He is lying on a couch, a prey to bitter thoughts and pangs of conscience, when his brother's voice reaches his ear from below, and dimly awakens sweet memories in him. He bids Magdalen to fetch the singer, and when the latter enters, he feels so {380} drawn to him without recognizing ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... Abbot," says Desfoso, turning around, "we have decided, in accordance with our conscience—to take the money. Do I ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... Penitent, which would be better changed to the Fair Wanton; for she discovers not one pang of remorse till the last act, and that seems to arise more from the external distress to which she is then exposed, than to any compunctions of conscience. She still loves and doats on her base betrayer, though a most insignificant creature. In this character, Rowe has been true to the sex, in drawing a woman, as she generally is, fond of her seducer; but he has not drawn drawn a Penitent. The character of Altamont is one of those ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... went on. Then came a person from the village—he didn't even say 'Thank you' when we asked him, and Oswald began to fear it might be like the awful time when we wandered about on Christmas Day trying to find poor persons and persuade them to eat our Conscience pudding. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... those whom I address who are disposed to ask the question, What course are we to follow in relation to this matter? The facts are before them, and the answer must be left to their own judgment and conscience. If any should care to know my own conclusions, they are the following; and in taking the liberty to state them very freely and broadly, I would ask the inquirer to examine them as freely in the light of the evidence which has ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... caught sight of a beaver swimming down the pond, towing a big branch over its shoulder; and his conscience smote him at the thought of the trouble and anxiety he was going to inflict upon the diligent little inhabitants. His mind was made up, however. He wanted knowledge, and the beavers would have to furnish it, at whatever cost. A few minutes of vigorous ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... are. There was much about her home-life that was not congenial, but she was naturally gentle and affectionate, and, where principle was not at stake, she would yield a point rather than create dissension. Occasionally, however, there would arise a question of conscience, and then she had shown the "grit" and "will of iron" of which ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... love the earth are earthly in their thoughts and affections, their corrupt inclinations gain such a mastery, that they seem natural to them. Vigilance is absolutely necessary to remove this insinuating enemy; and purity of conscience begets prudence, which can never be found under the tyranny of the passions, and which is the eye that guides the soul through the craggy paths of this life. Pure souls are raised by divine grace to dwell with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... work, but found myself unable to take it up, for my conscience told me that I ought to see Swain, make sure that he was comfortable, and do what I could to relieve his anxiety. It was not a pleasant task, for I should have to admit my failure, but at last I put my work aside, made ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson

... 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, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various

... not half appreciated yet; he is considered a very great artist, but what is that to what he was? But he did not fight for his own hand, though he worked hard enough in all conscience. Mr. Bauer in fact preceded all in the train of discovery: he saw in 1797, what others did not see till 30 years after. For instance, the elongation of the pollens' inner membrane into a tube, the first step towards the complete knowledge we now have of ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... don't expect you to believe it now, but I think you'll do what I ask you. Go to Raymond, and say you're sorry you forgot yourself so far as to strike him, and ask his pardon. There, I don't think there is anything in that which need go against your conscience, or that it is a request that any gentleman need be ashamed ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... (after condemning these fooleries myself) how I came to assent or continue my share of expense to them? I have no better excuse for my error, than confessing it. I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve by opposing a multitude that would have been too ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... tenderest fingers are sticking pins all over you. So 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

... Holland, Zeeland, the town and district (sticht) of Utrecht, Gelderland and Zutphen, by which they agreed to defend their rights and liberties and to resist all foreign intervention in their affairs by common action as if they were one province, and to establish and maintain freedom of conscience and of worship within their boundaries. William does not seem at first to have been altogether pleased with his brother's handiwork. He still hoped that a confederation on a much wider scale might have been formed, comprising ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... fostering Envy's asps;—to dash the bane Far from our hearts, which Hate, with frown severe, Extends for those who wrong us;—to revere With soul, or grateful, or resign'd, the train Of mercies, and of trials, is to gain A quiet Conscience, best of blessings here!— Calm Conscience is a land-encircled bay, On whose smooth surface Tempests never blow; Which shall the reflex of our life display Unstain'd by crime, tho' gloom'd with transient woe; While ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... supremacy, but remained in Ihe university until 1561. His known opposition to the new learning in religion giving much offence, he escaped from England and went to Louvain, where were gathered many students who had left the English universities for conscience' sake. Here he continued his theological studies and began to write controversial treatises. In 1562, on account of health, he returned secretly to Lancashire and did much, by exhortation and private meetings, to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... every other borough in Great Britain. He represents the City of London and all the other Commons of the land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain, and is in duty and conscience bound to ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Atlantic and the Pacific. It is undeniably demonstrated that it is unsafe to trust it to administer a government in accordance with republican ideas; for it acknowledges a higher law than even the human conscience, in the will of a person whom it professes to believe a vicegerent of Divinity, and in obedience to whom perjury, robbery, incest, and even murder, may be justifiable,—for his commands are those of Heaven. It is obvious that it is fruitless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... of these measures are indicative of the breadth of mind and large, tolerant views for which Jefferson was noted, viz.: the repeal in Virginia of the laws of entail; the abolition of primogeniture and the substitution of equal partition of inheritance; the affirmation of the rights of conscience and the relief of the people from taxation for the support of a religion not their own; and the introduction of a general system of education, so that the people, as the author of these beneficent acts himself expressed it, "would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... deemed that an artist should develop who would distinguish himself, and perhaps attain eminence in the records of Italian art; and for this reason it sought to encourage me, and to apply the spur to my pride by manifesting its feeling of sympathy. By good fortune I had enough conscience and good sense to receive this homage at its just value. I felt the need of studying, not books alone, but men and things, vice and virtue, love and hate, humility and haughtiness, gentleness and cruelty, folly and wisdom, poverty and opulence, avarice and lavishness, long-suffering and vengeance—in ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... between this and Daverill's removal, words came from him which may bring the story home or explain it if events have not done so already. "The old * * * has got his allowance. He won't ask for no more. Who was he, to be meddling? You was old enough in all conscience, July-ar!" His pronunciation of her name has a hint of a sneer in it—a sneer at the woman he victimised, some time in the interval between his desertion of his wife and his final error of judgment—dabbling in burglary. She might have been spared insult; for whatever her other ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... of Guantanamo. Having passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* (* Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained in 1514 from his friend Velasquez, the governor, a good repartimiente de Indios (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the same year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica.) we arrived (latitude 21 degrees 50 minutes) in the meridian of the entrance of the Bahia de Xagua. The longitude the chronometer gave me at this point was almost identical with that since published (in 1821) in the map ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... after Diomed has been wounded, reproaches Briseida pretty openly. He is not wrong, for Briseida weeps at Diomed's wound, and (to the regret and reproof of her historian, and indeed against her own conscience) gives herself to the Greek, or determines to do so, on the philosophical principle that Troilus is lost to her. Achilles then kills Troilus himself, and we hear no more ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... improved remarkably. He was even cheerful, though at times Phil had seen him shake his head, and could hear him sigh. This was always while he was watching Mazie; and it did not require much to tell the boy that whatever was upon the man's troubled conscience concerned ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... it the first time, he caused his terror and severity to appear before Moses, to the shaking of his soul and the dismaying of Israel; but when he gave it the second time, he caused all his goodness to pass before Moses, to the comfort of his conscience and ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan

... this was true, my conscience felt pretty easy on the score of whatever there might be ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... pride drew from me burning tears. I felt that I was growing fierce and hard like my persecutors, and my conscience, yet tender, deplored the lamentable change. My heart, crushed beneath the sense of injustice and unmerited neglect, was closed against the best feelings of humanity, and I regarded my fellow ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... "the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my strength, my refuge, the tower and horn of my salvation," &c. In all troubles and adversities, Psal. xlvi. 1. "God is my hope and help, still ready to be found, I will not therefore fear," &c., 'tis a fear expelling fear; he hath peace of conscience, and is full of hope, which is (saith [6350]Austin) vita vitae mortalis, the life of this our mortal life, hope of immortality, the sole comfort of our misery: otherwise, as Paul saith, we of all others were most wretched, but this makes us happy, counterpoising our hearts ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... of God Value of the soul Adam's transgression Depravity of Nature Love of sin Sin Pride Envy Drunkenness Sinners Sinful ease The child and the bird The sinner warned Conscience A good conscience A tender conscience ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... him with some sudden question; to get at the reality of him, to know him as he was. This air of power and masterfulness, surely that must be the mask that he wore. And how was he to himself? When he was alone with his own conscience? Surely there must come doubt and wonder, unhappiness and loneliness! Surely, then, the lives that he had wrecked must come back to plague him! Surely the memories of treachery and cruelty must make ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... certainly never use the greater part of it. Apparently a London shop will sell you the same kind of outfit for a Melbourne suburb as if you were going into the wilds of West Africa. They haven't any conscience." ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... but one good action to be done. The wise man will collect enough dynamite to blow up this planet. When its fragments fly through space an imperceptible amelioration will be accomplished in the universe and a satisfaction will be given to the universal conscience. Moreover, this universal ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... of the crime that she was committing, not from shame in regard to herself should her secret be found out, but because she felt herself to be an impediment to his career in the world. As to herself, she had no pricks of conscience. She had been true to the man,—brutal, abominable as he had been to her,—until she had in truth been made to believe that he was dead; and even when he had certainly been alive,—for she had seen him,—he had only again seen her, again to desert her. Duty to him ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... didn't take their work seriously. Sometimes they quit in the middle of a job and only returned when they needed something in their pockets. Then Lantier would switch his attack to the employers. They were nasty exploiters, regular cannibals. But he could sleep with a clear conscience as he had always acted as a friend to his employees. He didn't want to get rich ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... and by necessity were held from withdrawing, though their convictions had changed; but deliberate schemers from the first, ambitious but hungry natures, keen-sighted, unscrupulous. And they were at no loss to defend themselves against the attack of conscience. Life is a terrific struggle for all who begin it with no endowments save their brains. A hypocrite was not necessarily a harm-doer; easy to picture the unbelieving priest whose influence was vastly for good, in word ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... man ever heard of a question being raised, or a faction being embattled, upon any demur (great or small) as to the moral grounds of a war. To be able to face the trials of a war—that was its justification; and to win victories—that was its ratification for the conscience.' ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... and twenty different things that displeased him, he had nevertheless brought it with him; and her experience gave her the sad doubt that the cause of it might lie in his own conduct—for the consciousness may be rendered uneasy without much rousing of the conscience proper. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... his voice a little defiantly a the words, and paused. One could almost hear the people breathing. "I was afraid to come for fear that I should do the very thing I am going to do now. And yet I was impelled to come. I want to say that my conscience has not been clear since, as a member of the prudential committee, I gave my consent to the dismissal of Miss Wetherell. I know that I was influenced by personal and selfish considerations which should have had no weight. And after listening to Miss Penniman I take this opportunity to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... embracing charity. Animus. Moving a will in us, it is the mind; Mens. Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind. Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory. Ratio. In judging, reason only is her name. Sensus. In speedy apprehension, it is sense. Conscientia. In right and wrong they call her conscience; Spiritus. The spirit, when it to God-ward doth inflame: These of the soul the several functions be, Which my heart lightened by thy love ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... Zarlah had spoken of this device, proved how deeply its existence troubled her conscience, and restrained me from making any attempt to persuade her from thus severing a connecting strand between two hearts so widely separated. I therefore took the box and, with all my strength, hurled it far out into the lake, where it sank to remain a ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood

... trodden into an uneven road in this part of the journey. At times it seemed to me as if the sleigh and all it contained would go to pieces in the terrific thumps we received. We descended hills as if pursued by wolves or a guilty conscience, and it was generally our fate to find a huge oukhaba just when the horses were doing their best. I think the sleigh sometimes made a clear leap of six or eight feet from the crest of a ridge to the bottom of a hollow. The leaping ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... said Kate. "If your corn was the finest, it was, and the judges knew it, and you know it, and very likely the man who has the first prize, knows it. You have a clean conscience, and you know what you know. They surely can't feel right about it, or enjoy what they know. You have had the experience, you have the corn for seed; with these things to back you, clear a small strip of new land beside the woods this winter, and try what that will ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... first person to the third in a manner which must be utterly unintelligible to those who are not versed in the subject. Sir Oliver will, I am sure, not be offended if I say that, having satisfied his conscience by the present edition, he should now leave it for reference, and put forth a new one which should contain nothing but the words of Raymond and his spirit friends. Such a book, published at a low price, would, I think, have an ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that was. Thinks I to myself, "Friend, if that don't take the wrinkles out of the parchment case of your conscience, then I don't know nothin', that's all." Oh dear, how all America is overrun with such cattle as this; how few teach religion, or practise it right. How hard it is to find the genuine article. Some folks keep the people in ignorance, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... what it may have been. Since extreme childhood, Adele has been almost entirely under the care of her godmother, a quiet old lady, who, though a devotee of the Popish Church, you must allow me to say, is a downright good Christian woman. I am quite sure that she has not pressed upon the conscience of little Adele any bigotries of the Church. My wish in this matter I am confident that she has religiously regarded, and while giving the example of her own faith by constant and daily devotions, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... That the intrant shall be posed upon his conscience, before the great God, (and that in most grave manner) what moveth him to accept the office and charge ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... this tarmagant Correcter of our Lives and Manners pretend to make us believe that his Mouth or Conscience is so streight, that the t'other word can't get passage, or did his Mistress (honourable I mean) sit knotting under his Nose when he was writing, and so gave occasion for the changing it instead of Bawdy, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... me rest. I have not had much sleep of late, because of the pain, and because I always have been an active woman, and it puts me out to be a prisoner in my own room, and not able to get about. Well, Matabel, I have fretted a good deal over this, and have not been able to set my conscience at ease. When Polly knocked off the spout of my china teapot, I said to her, 'You must buy me another out of your wages.' She got one, but 'twasn't the same. It couldn't be the same. The fashion is gone out, and they don't make ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... touching up his picture till he has destroyed the likeness, and the startling realistic nature of his subject, so would Sir Richard go on weakening his first copy by improvements, and then appeal to me to say which was the best. I was almost invariably obliged, in conscience, to induce him to stick to the first thought, which had grasped the whole meaning like a flash. These notes were made in a most curious way. He used to bring his Latin Catullus down to table d'hote with him, and he used ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... had come to. "And Marko—this is the word—graceless. Utterly, utterly graceless. Without heart, Marko, without conscience, without morals, without the smallest scrap of an approach to any moral principle. Marko, that's an awful, a wicked, an abominable thing for a wife to say of her husband. But he wouldn't mind a bit my telling you. Not a bit. He'd love it. He'd laugh. He'd utterly love to know he had stung me ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... friends came and asked me to accept the presidency of the Peace Society of New York, which they had determined to organize, I declined, alleging that I was kept very busy with many affairs, which was true; but my conscience troubled me afterwards for declining. If I were not willing to sacrifice myself for the cause of peace what should I sacrifice for? What was I good for? Fortunately, in a few days, the Reverend Lyman Abbott, the Reverend Mr. Lynch, and some other notable laborers for good causes ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... mornings we could hear the church bells and now and then a set of chimes. Because we were above the street and next to the sky they sounded as drowsily musical as in a country village. They made me a bit conscience-stricken to think that for the boy's sake I didn't make an effort and go to some church. But for a while it was church enough to devote the seventh day to what the Bible says it was made for. Ruth used to read out loud to us and we planned to make ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... along a sofa, he is soon slumbering; profoundly, as one with nothing on his conscience to keep ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... stoniness of her look. "But I can assure you, my dearest, I have seen it. Vernon does not know how to speak—as we speak. He has, or he had, what is called a sneaking affection for Miss Dale. It was the most amusing thing possible; his courtship!—the air of a dog with an uneasy conscience, trying to reconcile himself with his master! We were all in fits of laughter. Of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... treacherous past,—her successful struggle into a high ethical life and knowledge of herself (the element which gives the book its force), offer much that is consistent, and appealing and elevating to the conscience. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... mind somewhat at ease, Monty ambled along the shore of the Yellowstone, with Whitey enjoying the scenery as much as his conscience would let him, and his conscience getting weaker every minute. And presently, at some distance, he saw a small huddled-up figure sitting on the bank. Closer inspection proved this figure to be pink, and still closer inspection revealed it ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... don't see it, sir? It's high time I should know the gentry. Why, I've grown up from a little thing with them. It's nothing, sir, so long as there's health and a clear conscience." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ. Penance, one of the most important sacraments, was intended to forgive sins committed after baptism. To receive the sacrament of penance worthily it was necessary for the penitent (1) to examine his conscience, (2) to have sorrow for his sins, (3) to make a firm resolution never more to offend God, (4) to confess his mortal sins orally to a priest, (5) to receive absolution from the priest, (6) to accept the particular penance—visitation of churches, saying of certain prayers, or almsgiving—which ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... but it was not that of a recluse scholar like Edward Fitzgerald, with the pensive consciousness of something desired but undone. George Bradford was in full sympathy with the best spirit of his time. He had all the distinctive American interest in public affairs. His conscience was as sensitive to public wrongs and perilous tendencies as to private and personal conduct. He voted with strong convictions, and wondered sometimes that the course so plain to him was ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... know is out of the question," I said, desperately. "But why has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... know, Signor Lorenzo Bentivoglio, that I never deceived your sister, as my conscience and Heaven itself can bear witness; you know also the diligence with which I have sought her, and the wish I have felt to have my marriage with her celebrated publicly. But she is not to be found, and my word cannot so considered eternally ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... trying one. On the other occasions when they had played he had found it an extremely difficult task, even with moderate cards, to bring it about that his hostess should always win the odd rubber, for he was an excellent player, and, like most good players, had an artistic conscience which made it painful to him to play a deliberately bad game, even from the best motives. If all his hands were going to be as strong as this first one he saw that there was disaster ahead. He could not ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... count with him as but one form of poetic beauty, or of the ideal, in things; as but one voice, in a world where there were many voices it would be a moral weakness not to listen to. And yet this voice, through its forcible pre-occupation of his childish conscience, still seemed to make a claim of a quite exclusive character, defining itself as essentially one of but two possible leaders of his spirit, the other proposing to him unlimited self-expansion in a world of various sunshine. The contrast was so pronounced as to make the easy, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... religious woman. Her faith was the inspiration of her whole life, and it is safe to say that from the smallest to the greatest things there was never a struggle between conscience and inclination in which conscience was not victorious. As she grew older, I fancy that she became a less orthodox member of the Church of England, to which she belonged, but her love for Christ and for ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... Lords, makes it ten times more necessary, since they cannot come to us, to keep a strict eye upon all persons who go to them. It imposes upon us a stricter duty to guard with a firm and powerful vigilance those whose principles of conscience weaken their principles of self-defence. If we undertake to govern the inhabitants of such a country, we must govern them upon their own principles and maxims, and not upon ours. We must not think to force ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Mary's resolutions was, that she would not be persuaded or induced to see Mr. Harry Carson during her father's absence. There was something crooked in her conscience after all; for this very resolution seemed an acknowledgment that it was wrong to meet him at any time; and yet she had brought herself to think her conduct quite innocent and proper, for although unknown to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell



Words linked to "Conscience" :   sense of shame, conscience-smitten, moral sense, small voice, wee small voice, sense of right and wrong, conscientiousness, morals, ethical motive, conscientious, shame, scruples, sense of duty, morality, ethics, unconscientiousness, superego



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com