Ethics should precede economics... We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products -- from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of greater and greater profits.

- Arianna Huffington

The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

- Benjamin Franklin

The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

- Jim Hightower

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

- Madame de Stael

Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.

- Madame de Stael

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe -- the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

- Immanuel Kant

Mother's Day, it's beautiful thought, but it's somebody's hurtin' conscience that thought of the idea. It was someone who had neglected their mother for years, and then they figured out: I got to do something about Momma. And knowing Momma was that easy, they figured, "we'll give her a day, and it will be all right with Momma." Give her a day, and then in return Momma gives you the other 364. See?

- Will Rogers

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

- Leo Tolstoy

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Look to your health -- and value it next to a good conscience; for health is ... a blessing that money cannot buy.

- Izaak Walton

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale. (Richard III)

- William Shakespeare

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.

- Doug Larson

I can resist everything except temptation.

- Oscar Wilde

The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.
[Letter to the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, 1952]

- Lillian Hellman



Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong.

- Anne Frank



The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.

- John Calvin



What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

- Hannah Arendt



When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church -- and there was nobody left to be concerned. (as printed in The Congressional Record, October 14, 1968)

- Martin Niemoller



The paradoxical -- and tragic -- situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.

- Erich Fromm



I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.

- Christopher Reeve



Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?

- Robert Coles



To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

- Abraham Lincoln



First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.

- Martin Niemoller



When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

- Eleanor Roosevelt



The inability of those in power to still the voices of their own consciences is the great force leading to change.

- Kenneth Kaunda



Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.

- Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC



In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

- Martin Niemoller



Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long.

- Theodore Parker



Conscience is the chamber of justice.

- Origen



Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

- Mark Twain



The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.

- Izaak Walton



Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

- H. L. Mencken



An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.



The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

- Thomas Paine



While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind.

- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu



Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.

- James Freeman Clarke



Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart.

- Joseph Cook



Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.

- Robert Redford



Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, 'Something is out of tune.'

- Carl Jung



Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

- William Ellery Channing



Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn



Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

- Robert G. Ingersoll