"Conscience" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well; at least that is giving a reason, and there is a certain pleasure in answering one another calmly. But now, Sir, on your conscience, do you really and truly believe ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... some rash critics fancy that she may be termed effete. But this is far from the truth. The absence of military burdens, rendered needless by the intelligent selfishness, if not the conscience, of the rest of Europe, implies no decadence of masculine spirit in the Dutch. In no department of enterprise, commercial ability, or intellectual energy are they inferior to any of their contemporaries, or to their own great progenitors. "Holland," ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the Peishwa is that he is a man without a spark of good feeling; that he has neither conscience nor gratitude, and would betray his own brother, if he thought that he would obtain any advantage by so doing. He is a born schemer, and his sole idea of politics is to play off one faction against another. I would rather take the word of a man of ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... conscience charges me with want of gallantry towards them in a previous chapter, and now I can honestly relieve it and win back their favour. They are the only beautiful women who mollify the horizon of Tangier: the Mahometan ladies are not visible, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... provides, a person of untainted integrity, candor, impartiality and wisdom, to judge of and determine so essential a point—A point, in which I should think, no person who justly deserves this character, can be passive or merely ministerial, against his own judgment and conscience. Whenever therefore a Governor for the time being, adjourns, prorogues or dissolves the general assembly, having the full power and authority delegated to him of judging from time to time of the Necessity of it, we ought to presume that he ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... offer was a very tempting one; yet the more Ishmael reflected on it the more determined he became to refuse it; because, in fact, his conscience would not permit him to enter into partnership with Lawyer Wiseman, for the following reasons: Lawyer Wiseman, a man of unimpeachable integrity in his private life, declined to carry moral responsibility into his professional business. He was indiscriminate in his acceptation of briefs. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Christian evil, And subtle the conscience' snare; But virtue's volcanic upheaval Shall cast fine ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... beggar maid that you have married; who knows what mischief she is up to? If she is deaf and can't speak, she might at least laugh; depend upon it, those who don't laugh have a bad conscience.' At first the King paid no heed to her words, but the old woman harped so long on the subject, and accused the young Queen of so many bad things, that at last he let himself be talked over, and condemned his beautiful wife ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... True, even this day would be deemed a dull one in New York, but there was a very fair imitation of sunshine this morning, and we enjoy rather more than American moonlight still, though the sky is partially clouded. [How can they have had the conscience to tax such light as they get up in this country?] Of course the turn out has been immense; I estimate the number inside of the building at thirty thousand, and I presume ten times as many went out of their way to ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... unhappily sensitized conscience read into Betty Sheridan's look, even as the imp who urged him on bade him tell her that she could leave at her own convenience; at once, if she pleased; the supply of stenographers in Whitewater ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... reserve, though very far from suspecting the fatal circumstances which rendered this souvenir so painful to M. de Camors. They thought it only natural he should be pained at so sudden a catastrophe, and that his conscience should be disturbed; but they were astonished when this impression prolonged itself from day to day, until it took the appearance of a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... this than we can prevent the growth of wealth itself; and our duty is, instead of wasting our breath in denouncing extravagance, or hailing panics as purging fires, to do what in us lies to give rich people more taste, more conscience, more sense of responsibility for curable ills, and a keener relish of the higher forms of pleasure. Extravagance—or, in other words, the waste of money on sensual enjoyment, the production of hideous furniture ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Leche, Adam Tunstal cooper, one lad, and I: for Henry Cocknedge was the whole winter at Mosco. [Sidenote: Christopher Colt a simple merchant.] And of these persons, as touching Colt, I think him (if I may without offence speake my conscience) the most simple person that was there, (as touching the vnderstanding of a marchant) although indeed he tooke vpon him very much to his owne harme and others I doubt, for he vsed himselfe not like a marchant, neither shewed diligence like ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... pounds. And now, O'Drive, a word with you:—I have fully discovered your treachery to both M'Clutchy and M'Slime; you were a willing agent in carrying out their hard and heartless excesses. You were, in truth, a thorough bailiff, without conscience, feeling, or remorse. In no instance have you ever been known to plead for, or take the part of a poor man; so far from that, I find that you have invited and solicited their confidence, only—in case they did not satisfy your petty extortions—that you might betray them to your relentless employer, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... sake. For maintaining the cause of the poor and the helpless they were mocked and reviled; scorn was their reward. The governing classes whose comfort they disturbed wished them dead; so did the self-righteous classes whose conscience they ruffled. That is the common fate of any man or woman who probes a loathsome evil, too long skimmed over. The peculiarity of these men was that, when they were driven to speak, they spoke in lines that flew on wings ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. Enfin, what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of conscience, for, with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and honest man. Was it right to disturb those placid depths? Was it right to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never be gratified? He himself had not the slightest intention of playing Lothario and of wrecking the peace of ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... Montrose's were more than counterbalanced by Cromwell's defeat of Rupert and Charles at Naseby (June 14, 1645); while presbytery suffered a blow from Cromwell's demand, that the English Parliament should grant "freedom of conscience," not for Anglican or Catholic, of course, but for religions non-Presbyterian. The "bloody sectaries," as the Presbyterians called Cromwell's Independents, were now masters of the field: never would the blue banner of the Covenant be set up south ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... me a little. If these two were dead I could now leave Zululand without qualms. Of course I was obliged to leave in any case, or die, but somehow that fact would not have eased my conscience. Indeed I think that had I believed they still lived, in this way or in that I should have tried not to leave, because I should have thought it for the best to stay to help them, whereby in all human probability I should have brought about my own death without helping them at all. Well, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... First of all, it is perfect in this: that anyone who begins it is bound to go on to the end. The very nature of the case leads him to go on and on from glory to glory, back and back to Christ, until the process is, actually completed, and he is like Christ. The reason is this: that the Christian conscience is never much taken up with attainment made, but always with attainment that is yet to be made. It is the difference not the likeness that touches the conscience. A friend has been away in Australia for ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... refractory, a summary blow dealt by the local Jacobins forces his legal authority to yield to their illegal dictate, so that he has to resign himself to being either their accomplice or their puppet. Such a role is intolerable to a man of feeling or conscience. Hence, in 1790 and 1791, nearly all the prominent and reputable men who, in 1789, had seats in the Hotels-de-villes, or held command in the National Guard, all country-gentlemen, chevaliers of St. Louis, old parliamentarians, the upper ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the many twitches of conscience I have felt upon your account, the agitations, the compunctions, the remorses, you would certainly forgive me. However, I was beginning to turn callous against all suggestions of writing to you, when your last letter ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... again. I'm afraid that he has heard something about this affair. I'll meet him, and accost him. But how dreadfully frightened I am! Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man with a guilty conscience, such as possesses myself. But however this matter turns out, I'll proceed to perplex it still further: ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... New England settled the tanner, the wheelwright, the blacksmith, the hardy son of the soil who came over to escape religious persecution, and to serve God according to the dictates of his own conscience, with none to molest or make him afraid, in the South there settled England and Europe's aristocrat, lazy and self-indulgent, satisfied to live upon the unrequited toil ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... with fatuous pride over the whole meal that it became a temptation to denounce at least some trifling sauce or garnishment; nevertheless, so much mendacity proved beyond me and I spared him and my own conscience. This puffed-uppedness of his was to be observed only in his expression of manner, for during the consumption of food it was his worthy custom to practise a ceremonious, nay, a reverential, hush, and he never offered (or approved) conversation until he ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand gently upon his bowed head, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the state of mind when a third, if not a fourth, reproach on the same subject on which his conscience was already uneasy, was simply exasperating, and without the poor excuse he had offered his aunt and sister, he burst out that it was very hard that such a beastly row should be made about a fellow knocking down ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Every man is his brother's keeper. He is expected to do him good and not harm. If my brother is weak, I must try to be his strength. If he is in sorrow, I must comfort him; if needy, help him with my substance; if sick, I must minister unto him. By so doing I shall receive both the approval of my conscience, and the Master's reward: 'Well ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... more—not even when they reached their own doors. Whether she was moody or conscience-stricken, Annie could not tell. All the more anxious was she to do her part; and she went in to pray that the suffering lady might be saved from this new peril—the most fearful of the snares of her most perilous life. Annie did not forget to pray that those who had ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... said in a thin, monotonous voice, "that the time has come for you to consider and revise your conduct. The fact that your uncle has been kept waiting for his supper is only one result of an unhappy change which I have observed, but have forborne to speak of in the hope that your own conscience and the influence of your past training would lead you to consider and conform. Think of the precious moments, indeed I may say hours, that you have wasted this afternoon in idle converse with an old negress who is no fit companion for you! You are ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... hand, the hateful selfishness and greed of unprincipled persons is taking advantage of this mighty force of nature, and prostituting it to the hateful ends of such persons, without heed to the dictates of conscience or the teaching of religion or of ordinary morality. These people are sowing a baleful wind, which will result in their reaping a frightful whirlwind on the mental plane. They are bringing down upon themselves pain and misery in ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... and other workingwomen who went without a winter cloak in order to give the money to this movement for freedom. This pathetic story ought to be written in full and given to every man who eases his conscience by saying, "The majority of women do not want to vote;" and to every well-fed, well-clothed woman who declares in her selfish ease, "I have all the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Socialists upon this aspect of their propaganda is undoubtedly responsible for keeping a great many outside of their movement who otherwise would be identified with it. If the Socialists would repudiate the doctrine that Socialism is a class movement, and make their appeal to the intelligence and conscience of all classes, instead of to the interests of a special class, they could probably double their numerical strength at once. To many, therefore, it seems a fatuous and quixotic policy to preach such a doctrine, and it is very often charitably ascribed to the peculiar intellectual and moral myopia ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... intention of consulting the pontiff on this occasion. The emperor sent an address to the magistracy of Paris, like the meanest of his subjects, declaring that his consent had not been complete; he had only agreed to a useless formality with the object of tranquillising the conscience of the empress and that of the holy father, feeling certain since then that he must have recourse to a divorce. The scruples of the ecclesiastics were overcome; and the religious marriage declared null by the diocesan and metropolitan authorities. The news was inserted in the Moniteur, together with ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... added that the sum would have been left her all the same in his will, and that therefore she must not consider the gift as in any way an indemnification to her for anything, but that there was no reason, after all, why a man should not be allowed to entertain a natural desire to lighten his conscience, etc., etc.; in fact, all that would naturally be said under the circumstances. Totski was very eloquent all through, and, in conclusion, just touched on the fact that not a soul in the world, not even General Epanchin, had ever heard a word about the above seventy-five thousand ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of that,' said Ethel, when he had taken leave. 'He will disburthen his conscience; but then papa is well able to take care of himself! Flora, I am so thankful you ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 Odipus, the soon repenting pride of 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 ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... having spoken a word with each other, Daniel would know that he was on the wrong track. But all this bound him to the young woman with hoops of steel; he came to regard her as the creature given him of God to act as his living conscience and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... civilian life with all the liberty-loving tendencies, our boys have thrown themselves into the fight on their own accord, once they realized the necessity of it. The whip of discipline could never accomplish so much as the conscience of necessity. And that is what the national army possessed. And that is the cause of its success. And therefore I ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... satisfied his Puritan conscience, another day was cheerfully appointed by Daguerre, who generously imparted the secret of this new art to the American, by whom it was carried across the ocean and successfully introduced into the United States, as will be ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... additional boon of an utter lack of imagination. We had many generals who were greater than Grant, but they were troubled with imaginations. Imagination will ruin the best general in the world. Now, take yourself, for example. If you were to kill a man unintentionally, your conscience would trouble you all the rest of your life. Think how you would feel, then, if you were to cause the death of ten thousand men all in a lump. It would break you down. The mistake an ordinary man makes may result in the loss of a few dollars, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... 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 a mask ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... as exercise they are healthful and invigorating. But a reindeer you never see, and unless, overcoming the prejudices of your British-bred conscience, you care to take an occasional pop at a fox, you had better have left your rifle at the hut, and, instead, have brought a stick which would have been helpful. Notwithstanding which the guide continues sanguine, and in broken English, helped out by stirring ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Sunday, or, as I had learned falsely to call it, the Sabbath,—that I fell into painful and injurious conflict with a superior kinsman, by refusing to obey his orders on the Sunday. He attempted to deal with me by mere authority, not by instruction; and to yield my conscience to authority would have been to yield up all spiritual life. I erred, but I was ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... would not be understood to imply that she was nowise to blame—but that she was by no means so much to blame as one who has but suspected the presence of a truth, and from selfishness or self-admiration has turned from it. She was to blame wherever she had not done as her conscience had feebly told her; and she had not made progress just because she had neglected the little things concerning which she had promptings. There are many who do not enter the kingdom of heaven just because they will not believe ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Archie. He was about to mention his brother-in-law's connection with the matter, but checked himself in time, remembering Bill's specific objection to having his secret revealed to Reggie. "It's like this, old thing, I've never met this female, but she's a pal of Lucille's"-he comforted his conscience by the reflection that, if she wasn't now, she would be in a few days-"and Lucille wants to do her a bit of good. She's been on the stage in England, you know, supporting a jolly old widowed mother and educating a little brother and all that kind and ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... fear my executive ability is not of so high an order; besides, as I haven't been born to it, my conscience might trouble me if I had to shoot my enemies and rob the worthy merchants. I had better stick to digging holes in the ground. That is all I ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... at the same time a true and wholesome feeling that may cling to it. The patience which with some men is an instinct, and with others a fair name for indifference, was with him an acquisition of reason and conscience. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... 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 ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... cried the sculptor, "the more honest a man is in this world the worse off he is. If I hadn't had a conscience when I was a young fellow, I should be all right now. Who is it—Fenton?—that is always saying that he asks forgiveness for his virtues and thanks the gods for every vice ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... to meet Lize Jane, I always felt as if I was stealing raisins. I never exactly stole raisins; but when my mother said I might go to the box and get two or three, I had sometimes taken a whole handful. I knew by the pricking of my conscience that that was wrong, and in the same way I knew that this was wrong too. Mother was in the green chamber, covering an ottoman with green carpeting, so she wouldn't see me from that side of ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... with slow insolence, "that'll run an eagle-bird wheel ain't got no more conscience than a hombre's got brains that'll buck one. In Texas we'd shoot a man full of little ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... argument, his opinions, whatever may be thought of their soundness, were confined to the legitimate field of executive interpretation, and such as in the exercise of his official discretion he might with undoubted propriety communicate to Congress. But he had apparently failed to satisfy his own conscience in thus summarily reasoning the executive and governmental power of a young, compact, vigorous, and thoroughly organized nation of thirty millions of people into sheer nothingness and impotence. How supremely absurd was the whole national panoply of commerce, credit, coinage, treaty power, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... eyes. Ferrol laughed outright. A grotesque thought occurred to him. This little black notary was exactly like the weird imp which, he had always imagined, sat high up in his brain, dropping down little ironies and devilries—his personified conscience; or, perhaps, the truth left out of him at birth and given this form, to be with him, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... man with a conscience, and, grateful for his life, he rewarded his preserver by a clerkship of importance. The duties of this office he discharged faithfully for three years, when the death of the head clerk left a vacancy, and when Arch was nineteen ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... signed by Rushworth in the name of Fairfax and the whole Council of War. In these it was distinctly repeated that the Army had no desire to overturn or oppose Presbyterian Church- government as it had been established, and only claimed Liberty of Conscience under that government; but there were also clear expressions of the opinion that a dissolution of the existing Parliament and the election of a new one on a more popular system ought to be in contemplation. Nay, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... letter to Manly. He realized that he might set his conscience at rest by keeping his end of the line open, but he wanted to have one steady hand, at ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... thought that I'd endure To be covered with disgrace; They thought me of their tribe, Who on filthy lucre doat, So they offered me a bribe For my vote, boys! my vote! O shame upon my betters, Who would my conscience buy! But I'll not wear their fetters, Not I, indeed, ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... passion for antiquity, that progress in philology and criticism, which led to a correct knowledge of the classics, to a fresh taste in poetry, to new systems of thought, to more accurate analysis, and finally to the Lutheran schism and the emancipation of the conscience. Men of science will discourse about the discovery of the solar system by Copernicus and Galileo, the anatomy of Vesalius, and Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. The origination of a truly scientific method is the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "if your conscience does not reproach you, it ought to do so. If you are going to begin your old tricks again, you will find yourself once more in a park enclosed by four stone walls, and no power on earth will save you from the hulks; you will be a marked man, and your character will be ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... His amusement a bit dampened by this consternation and by the unforeseen conduct of the hen, Charles-Norton went winging back, the dead fowl dangling at the end of his arm, to his retreat, and that night, when the pangs of his conscience had somewhat moderated, enjoyed the best dinner he had had for ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... the group of which we have spoken, every member of which has won the attention of many human souls, and must, in consequence, bear in his conscience the sharp sting of multiplied responsibilities, there should be found ONE who has not suffered aught, that was pure in the natural attraction which bound them together in this chain of glittering links, to fall into dull forgetfulness; one who allowed no breath of the fermentation lingering ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... things on which depend the comfort and dignity of life! It seems that these things were so impressed on the mind and heart of the young Victoria by her careful, methodical German mother, that they became a part of her conscience, entered so deeply into the rule of her life that no after-condition of wealth, or luxury, or sovereign independence; no natural desire for ease or pleasure; no passion of love or grief; no possible exigencies of imperial state have been able to overcome ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... would have had none to spare for pity, that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull instead of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity and good-feeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Here we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... everywhere—not because they are gifted and industrious, but rather because, having an enormous stock of energy at their command, they cannot stop to think over the choice of means when on their way toward their aims, and, excepting their own will, they know no law. Sometimes they speak of their conscience with fear, sometimes they really torture themselves struggling with it, but conscience is an unconquerable power to the faint-hearted only; the strong master it quickly and make it a slave to their desires, for they unconsciously feel that, given room and freedom, conscience would ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... paid it several visits. Evidently the servants had been instructed to expect and make him welcome, should he appear, for a smiling face answered his ring and the fire in the library was invariably lighted on his arrival. But Win's conscience would not allow him to neglect Roger even for these delightful hours of solitude, so this pleasure was ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... mechanic's toil affording a market for the abundant harvests of the husbandman; for the preservation of the national faith and credit; for wise and generous provision to effect the intellectual and moral education of our youth; for the influence upon the conscience of a restraining and transforming religion, and for the joys of home—for these and for many other blessings we should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... and his six sons and his son-in-law enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to work, for months, if not years, summering and wintering the thought, without expecting any reward but a good conscience, while almost all America stood ranked on the other side, I say again that it affects me as ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... Job; "but any thing I could obtain from that quarter I should esteem a gain. I've lost enough from it in all conscience; in fact, the old man's harsh proceedings towards me were the foundation of all my subsequent difficulties. The old fellow did, indeed, boast to the clergyman who visited him in his last illness, that he had made me ample amends ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... was frightened. "What will mother say?" she thought, and began to run distractedly along the road, crying and sobbing as she went, and telling herself that it wasn't her fault, that she only went upstairs to make the beds,—but here her conscience gave a great prick. It was but ten o'clock when she went upstairs to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... of Congress, while it remains unrepealed, more especially if it be constitutionally valid in the judgment of those public functionaries whose duty it is to pronounce on that point, is undoubtedly binding on the conscience of each good citizen of the Republic. But in what sense can it be asserted that the enactment in question was invested with perpetuity and entitled to the respect of a solemn compact? Between whom was the compact? No distinct contending powers of the Government, no ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse; and unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they still have left me the Providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate; I can walk in my neighbor's pleasant fields, and see the varieties ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... recital had impressed more and more, as his own recollection revived as Athos spoke, "you see that my crime did not cause the destruction of any one's soul, and that the soul in question may fairly be considered to have been altogether lost before my regret. It is, however, an act of conscience on my part. Now this matter is settled, therefore, it remains for me to ask with the greatest humility, your forgiveness for this shameless action, as most certainly I should have asked it of your father, if he were still alive, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak; for if any man see thee which hast knowledge, sit at cards, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to sit at cards also? And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore if cards ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... dissuade poets from singing in sonnets 'Love's Sensual Empery.' In 1597 Henry Locke (or Lok) appended to his verse-rendering of Ecclesiastes {441a} a collection of 'Sundrie Sonets of Christian Passions, with other Affectionate Sonets of a Feeling Conscience.' Lok had in 1593 obtained a license to publish 'a hundred Sonnets on Meditation, Humiliation, and Prayer,' but that work is not extant. In the volume of 1597 his sonnets on religious or philosophical themes number no fewer than three hundred ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... unprotected head, and I had no water to quench my burning thirst. Thus for three days I lay drifting, I knew not where, expecting every moment to be my last, and a prey to my own bitter recollections. Then conscience for a time usurped its sway; and I believe, had I fallen into good hands I might have repented; but it was not to be so. A vessel at length hove in sight. I had just strength left to wave my hand to show that I was alive. I was taken on board; not that ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Sioux City to Aberdeen was one of the gloomiest I had ever experienced. Not only was my conscience uneasy, it seemed that I was being hurled into a region of arctic storms. A terrific blizzard possessed the plain, and the engine appeared to fight its way like a brave animal. All day it labored forward while the coaches behind it swayed ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... he had left the Bishop's presence, however, his heart smote him, and an unquiet conscience blamed him for admitting, even in this manner, a doubt of the true faith. He reached home overwhelmed with grief; meat was set before him, but he refused to eat; and when his friends visited him and ascertained the cause of his low spirits, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... hardly capable of argument that, next to the instincts of self-preservation and of the maintenance of family ties, the desire to preserve outward appearances is undoubtedly one of the strongest of human feelings; and this great natural law, often the last remnant or the substitute of conscience, character, and self-respect, is even more fully operative in a highly civilised than in a savage or a semi-savage state of society. Of a truth, every human being is more or less of a Pharisee with regard to certain conventionalities ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... noble act for someone who doesn't know you," said Orne. "You've a job for me. O.K. You've made the gesture for your conscience." ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... occurrences I have detailed he neglected, for the first time in many years, to respond to his clerk's respectfully-cordial salutation. To the discreet "Good-morning, sir," he vouchsafed no reply. Mr. Murphy was a trifle indignant and a good deal perturbed, for to an unquiet conscience a word or the lack of it is a goad. Once or twice, looking up from his book, he discovered his employer's hard eyes fixed upon him with a regard too particular ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the elder brother, if he is of a good disposition, approach the wife of his younger brother? The ways of morality are ever subtle, and, therefore, we know them not. We cannot, therefore, say what is conformable to morality and what not. We cannot do such a deed, therefore, with a safe conscience. Indeed, O Brahmana, I cannot say, 'Let Draupadi become the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... if the Lord puts it in my mind to kill the steer it ain't my fault, muther. Conscience alive, what are we all dressed up so about?" he added, looking at Alf. "So much stile goin' on that a body don't know whuther he's a shuckin' corn or is at a picnic. Blow his head off as soon as I ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty; For I can see no fruits in all their faith, But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride, Which methinks fits not their profession. Haply some hapless man hath conscience, And for his conscience lives in beggary. They say we are a scatter'd nation: I cannot tell; but we have scambled [25] up More wealth by far than those that brag of faith: There's Kirriah Jairim, the ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... make you proud, I doubt, and so by praise ruin those graces which we admire, and, but for that, cannot praise you too much. In my conscience, if thou canst hold as thou hast begun, I believe thou wilt have him all to thyself; and that was more than I once thought any woman on this side the seventieth year of his age would ever be able to say. The letters ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... heavily up the hill towards us, waving a sword as he came. Well, thought I, the more there are of them the quicker it will be over, and the more credit for us in keeping up our end so long. Better die in a good fight than live with a bad conscience. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the right broke the seal of his book and began to read its pages. It was a tale of the sins of this dead man entered as fully as though that officer were his own conscience given life and voice. In cold and horrible detail it told of the evil doings of his childhood, of his youth, and of his riper years, and thus massed together the record was ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... when he found himself a freeman he was not able to know what was an infraction of the law. They did not know what in law constituted a tort, or a civil action from a sled. The violent passions pampered in slavery, the destruction of the home, the promiscuous mingling of the sexes, a conscience enfeebled by disuse, made them easy transgressors. The Negro is not a criminal generically; he is an accidental criminal. The judiciary and juries of the South are responsible for the alarming prison statistics ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... would love Marguerite. One could not do it in a moment. That was the salve she was applying to her conscience. When they had known each other for months, learned and respected each others' peculiarities, love would come. She had not felt inclined to fling herself in Lilian Boyd's arms, and she had almost doubted at ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... at the foot of the throne, when any thing favourable for the criminal had appeared in the course of the trial. How much more then might it have been expected to succeed, when earnestly urged as a case of conscience, in behalf of a man whom his judges had expressly acquitted of cowardice and treachery, the only two imputations that rendered him criminal in the eyes of the nation! Such an interposition of the crown in parliamentary transactions was irregular, unnecessary, and at another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... young for a doctor. I'm afraid people won't have much confidence in him," said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily. Then she shut her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty to say and held her conscience clear. She belonged to the type which always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that glittered, and carried a gold-topped cane. The fact that Paul wheeled without wincing showed that he was not yet in debt. Your Grub Street old-time author would have leaped his own length at the touch. But Paul, with a clean conscience, turned slowly, and gazed without recognition into the clean-shaven, calm, cold face that confronted his ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... conscience is set forth with admirable sureness of analysis, and the author has been able to represent with impressive intensity the mysterious fatality which demands the death ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... another errand upon which his conscience bade him hasten, but casting one glance through the window he saw the soaking streets and the increasing rain, swept in wild gusts by the fierce wind. Then the warmth and light of the place, the hum of talk and perhaps the spirit of youth infolded ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Laura, with a ministerial air, after we had started, "was a providential one. You, my dear Frank, were at liberty to pursue your favorite pastime of whist, in some remote apartment, without being conscience-torn respecting me. I have danced very well without you, thanks to the strangers. And you, Margaret, have had an unusual opportunity of displaying your latent forces. Three such different men! But let us drive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... cost the young advocate no small effort to prevent his lips from uttering the fatal word, "You," prompted by his indignant conscience. But he thought of the success of his mission; and, instead ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... observing that he often kept matters involving certain moral questions from her till the moment for deciding them was past. When she accused him of this, he confessed that it was so; but defended himself by saying that he was afraid her conscience might sway him against ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... as a friend of Cromwell, Milton, and Sir Harry Vane, had been exiled from Massachusetts for maintaining that the civil power had no jurisdiction over conscience. This doctrine was fatal to the existence of a theocratic state dominated by the church. John Cotton was perfectly logical in "enlarging" Roger Williams into the wilderness, but he showed less than his usual discretion in attacking ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... already drunk too much on his way home, lurched off to the "Blue Dragon," where all his evenings now were spent. But his wife sat over the fire and looked at the grate Dick had laboriously black-leaded that morning, and her thoughts were busy with the past. And her long sleeping conscience was awake, and she heard again the feeble voice of a dying man, "Send this letter to brother Richard at once. We quarrelled before he went off to Ironboro', but he'll come and see to things and take charge of little Dick. And there'll be enough to ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over all her desire to make her life greatly effective. What could she do, what ought she to do?—she, hardly more than a budding woman, but yet with an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfied by a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a discursive mouse. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit, she might have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to, individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is claimed for the moral conscience. AEsthetics deals with the morality of appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of such appeals in regard to the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... not commonly very much alive to the sufferings of others, and it is some mortification to my vanity that I cannot, but at the expence of a reproaching conscience, ascribe the civilities I have experienced on this occasion to my personal merit. It would doubtless have been highly flattering to me to relate the tender and general interest I had excited even among this cold-hearted people, who scarcely feel for themselves: but the truth is, they ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... continued the Parson in labouring voice, "for this reason: I've no doubt you're a better man than I am. Still I'm a clergyman, though I'm not much good at it. And if you've got anything on your conscience—anything you care to tell ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defense; I never seek by bribes to please Nor by desert to give offense. Thus do I live, thus will I die; Would all did so as ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... myself that I had not positively intended to act the part of a stowaway. I could not but know that I had thought about it, yet I had only gone below for the sake of seeing the hold of a ship. I could say that when I was discovered, with a tolerably clear conscience, so I fancied. Should I be discovered? That was the question. For what I could tell I might be entombed beneath the cargo and be unable to get out till I was starved to death. The thought was too dreadful for ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... bury myself under the ruins of my Country, or if that consolation appears too sweet to the Destiny that persecutes me, I shall know how to put an end to my misfortunes when it is impossible to bear them any longer. I have acted, and continue to act, according to that interior voice of conscience and of honor which directs all my steps: my conduct shall be, in every time, conformable to those principles. After having sacrificed my youth to my Father, my ripe years to my Country, I think I have acquired the right to dispose of my old ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Mr. Thumb,' concluded the other three unanimously. 'Your idea is against morality, against God, against yourself, against everybody. Our conscience will ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... any other man. We who claim toleration should be the first to extend it to others. I am only indicating my own position, as I have often done before. And I know your reply so well. Can't I hear your grave voice saying "Have faith!" Your conscience allows you to. Well, mine won't allow me. I see so clearly that faith is not a virtue, but a vice. It is a goat which has been herded with the sheep. If a man deliberately shut his physical eyes and refused to use them, you would be as quick as any ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... your Inns of Court.—I myself once belonged to Serjeants' Inn, and was perhaps as good a wit and a critic as any Templar of them all. Nay, as for that matter, thof I despise vanity, I can aver with a safe conscience, that I had once the honour to belong to the society called the Town. We were all of us attorney's clerks, gemmen, and had our meetings at an ale-house in Butcher Row, where we regulated ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... devote myself heart and soul to your extermination! ALL: Poor lad — poor lad! (All weep) KING: Well, Frederic, if you conscientiously feel that it is your duty to destroy us, we cannot blame you for acting on that conviction. Always act in accordance with the dictates of your conscience, my boy, and chance the consequences. SAMUEL: Besides, we can offer you but little temptation to remain with us. We don't seem to make piracy pay. I'm sure I don't know why, but we don't. FREDERIC: I know why, but, alas! I mustn't tell you; it wouldn't be ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Lion, wolf, vulture, fox, jackal and ape, The strong of limb, the keen of nose, we find, Who, with some jars in harmony, combined, Their primal instincts taming, to escape The brawl indecent, and hot passions drape. Convenience pricked conscience, that the mind. Thus entered they the field of milder beasts, Which in some sort of civil order graze, And do half-homage to the God of Laws. But are they still for their old ravenous feasts, Earth gives the edifice they build no base: They spring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this way. Kirk had slept badly the night before, and, as he lay awake in the small hours, his conscience had troubled him. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... to be a keenly acute conscience about evil, and about compromise with evil; and yet with it a sanity of judgment on particular questions arising, and a gentle consideration for others who see otherwise, or think they do. Evil grows in subtlety and in aggressiveness in our day, and probably will yet more. It seeks especially ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... all sorts of a fool, but out I went as eagerly as if there had been some hope. Miss Cullen began to tease me over my sudden access of energy, declaring that she was sure it was a pose for their benefit, or else due to a guilty conscience ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... long bitter struggle, most of it falling on the junior partner with the Quaker conscience, to make good the losses without actually putting the firm out of business. For going on with the business was essential to the making good. It was a gruelling four years' struggle, but with success at the end of it. And then the American engineer, ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... before, or I should not have signed on for this trip, sir. But having come so far I'm going to earn out my pay. What's done will not be on my conscience. The shipmaster's blameless in these matters; it's the owner who drives him that earns his punishment in the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Ivanhoe's death (for his body was never sent home after all, nor seen after Wamba ran away from it), his Eminence procured a Papal decree annulling the former marriage, so that Rowena became Mrs. Athelstane with a clear conscience. And who shall be surprised, if she was happier with the stupid and boozy Thane than with the gentle and melancholy Wilfrid? Did women never have a predilection for fools, I should like to know; or fall in love with donkeys, before the time of the amours of Bottom and Titania? Ah! Mary, had you not ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his opponents denominated it, appointed him pamphlet-writer general to the court; an office for which he was peculiarly well calculated, possessing, with a strong mind and a ready wit, that kind of yielding conscience which allowed him to support the measures of his benefactors though convinced they were injurious to his country. De Foe now retired to Newington with his family, and for a short time lived at ease; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... charity but a salve to conscience—an insurance, at decidedly moderate premium, in case, after all, there should happen to be another world? Is Charity lending to the Lord something we ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... and Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish on the other. In a conflict where the latter could have had even the show of right, the truth, in our hands as against them, must have been driven to the wall; and while I believe we were able to carry the conscience of the country against the action of the Free Church, the battle, it must be confessed, was a hard-fought one. Abler defenders of the doctrine of fellowshiping slaveholders as christians, have not been ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... an owl: Roman equivalent, the letter M. The only use of the owl I can record is to be inscribed on the white surface. In The Avenging Conscience, as described in chapter ten, the murderer marks the ticking of the heart of his victim while watching the swinging of the pendulum of the old clock, then in watching the tapping of the detective's pencil on ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... the center of attraction and were nightly crowded with the better part of the brilliant society of Paris. Ninon was the acknowledged guide and leader, and all submitted to her sway without the slightest envy or jealousy, and it may also be said, without the slightest compunctions or remorse of conscience. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... was lying on the bare ground, with only a cold, hard stone for his pillow: all that he loved left far behind; an unknown future before him; and wild beasts prowling about in the distance, in hungry search of prey. How heavily on his conscience lay his deep sin! And how the pure, bright moon and the peaceful stars seemed to ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... is but the gift of latest years; Conscience was born when man had shed his fur, his tail, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... takes (and one that I abhor!) In asking one this question: "What did you buy it for?" Why doesn't conscience ply its blessed trade before the act, Before one's cussedness becomes a bald, accomplished fact— Before one's fallen victim to the Tempter's strategem And blown in twenty dollars by ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... of the closest kind, and she brung up as you may say, right inside the tabernacle, with her Pa's phylakracy hangin' on the very horns of the altar, you may know what opposition Richard got from her Pa and her own conscience. Her conscience, as so many good girl's consciences are, wuz a perfect tyrant, and drove her round—that, and her Pa. He wanted to be a good man, but wuz bigoted and couldn't see no higher than the top of the steeple, and didn't ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... the 'Satirist', [2] which I have read,—fairly written, and, though vituperative, very fair in judgment. One part belongs to you, viz., the 4s. and 6d charge; it is unconscionable, but you have no conscience. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... although the son was honest, both of them were interested in proving the tale to be false. Since that time, however, often I have thought that he knew this himself, and trusted by the choice both to cheat his own conscience and to preserve the wealth and dignity for his son. God, to whom he has gone, alone knows the truth of it, but with such a man it may very well have been as I think. I say that both were interested, for it seems, as he told me afterwards, that the lawyer was to receive a great sum—ten thousand ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... a sudden spring, so this man, having been raised from being a common soldier of the lowest class to the highest military dignities, without having received any injury or any provocation, polluted his conscience from an insatiable ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... in 1797; and it is an accurate description, as far as it goes, of the grown man. But of the religious temper, too, the love of freedom and of virtue, the hatred of injustice, cruelty, and falsehood that guided his uneven steps through all the pitiful struggle of his middle life, of the conscience that made his weakness hell to him—of these, too, we may be sure that the beginnings were to be seen in the boy at Ottery St. Mary, as indeed they were before his eyes in the person of his father, who, if not a first-rate genius, was, says his son, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... after all, you have so pretty, so winning an Air, that o' my Conscience, I think, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... Harry's conscience smote her for her wish to be of service to this handsome young fellow, since she had just refused to accompany Solomon to Dunloppel, on the score of fatigue. It was level walking, or nearly so, to the pit-mouth, and it was a climb of many hundreds ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... But he was like one infected, and could not escape from his desire to see a cock-fight. He knew that Azariah would never forgive him for keeping him waiting ... waiting for how long? he asked himself. Till he cares to wait no longer, his conscience answered him. He was going to get into great trouble, but he could not say no to the cockers, and he followed them, asking himself when he should escape from the evil spirit which—at their instigation, perhaps—had taken possession of him. A moment after he was assuring himself that the ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... suspected until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to subdue her gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what are called serious pursuits: In her limited experience she brought everything to the judgment of her own conscience, and settled the affairs of all the world in her own serene judgment hall. Perhaps her mother saw this, and saw also that there was nothing in the Friends' society to prevent her from growing more and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... American pirates should stand Major Stede Bonnet along with the rest. But in truth he was only a poor half-and-half fellow of his kind, and even after his hand was fairly turned to the business he had undertaken, a qualm of conscience would now and then come across him, and he would make vast promises to forswear ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... expression, God, will be carried from the church down the street to the sick one. All passers-by must kneel as this goes along, and the police will arrest you if you do not at least take off your hat. "Liberty of conscience is a most diabolical thing, to be stamped out at any cost," is the maxim of Rome, and the Guarani has learned his lesson well. "In Inquisition Square men were burned for daring to think, therefore men stopped thinking when death ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... Lu, of course. Who was with her? A gentleman, bending low to catch her words, holding her hand in an irresistible pressure. Not Rose, for he was flitting in beyond. Mr. Dudley. And I saw then that Lu's kindness was too great to allow her to repel him angrily; her gentle conscience let her wound no one. Had Rose seen the pantomime? Without doubt. He had been seeking her, and he found her, he thought, in Mr. Dudley's arms. After a while we went in, and, finding all smooth enough, I slipped through the balcony-window and hung over the balustrade, glad to be alone a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... boy thanked the sentinel for his permission, of which he immediately availed himself. Tom did not yet realize the force of the maxim that "all is fair in war," and his conscience gave a momentary twinge as he thought of the deception he had practised upon the honest and kind-hearted rebel. He was very thankful that he had not been compelled to put a bullet through his head; but perhaps he was more thankful that the man had not been obliged ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... its clear arrangement of the topics, its perspicuity of language, and its constant practical bearings. I am particularly pleased with its views of conscience. Its frequent and pertinent illustrations, and the Scriptural character of its explanations of the particular duties, will make the work both attractive and valuable as a text-book, in imparting instruction upon this vital part ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... for a moment I felt relieved, but at breakfast or dinner, I was not allowed to eat anything; I was obliged to remain in doors all day, although the sun was shining brightly out of doors, and with a conscience restless and reproving me all the time, I ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... and about to leave for America. "Never mind," said Mr. ——: "I'm going to file a bill against Duggan. The fellow is a Papist. I will get his property, and you shall have a share." It is probable that Mr. —— might have tried to quiet his conscience by this intended application of the money, and to persuade himself that he was not acting through love of gain. In a day or two after the above conversation McCarthy was staying with Mr. Deane Freeman ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... conscience may be gauged when it is narrated that no sooner had he dismissed the stump of his cigar toward the grate than he dropped into a peaceful doze and remained placidly unconscious of his perils for the space of ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Theft's Nemesis. Thou shalt not steal! At least,—ahem!—well, all must feel That property in thoughts and phrases, The verbal filagree that raises Flat fustian into "oratory," And makes the pulpit place of glory, Such property is not so easy To settle, and a conscience queasy O'er picking pockets, oft remains Quite unperturbed while—picking brains! A Sermon is not minted coin; It you may borrow, buy, purloin, In part or wholly, and yet preach it As your own work. Who'll dare impeach it, This innocent transaction? Not Your "brethren," save, perchance, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... "the same old conscience in the same old mule! Who likes squalidity? I don't. You don't! What if Fate has hit you a nasty swipe! Suppose Fortune has landed you a few in the slats! It's only temporary and you know it. All business in the world is conducted on borrowed capital. It's your business to ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... again. "Thou hast a veritable talent for creating problems wherewith to vex thyself, my sister, conscience-tossed! Hath one a right to give that which he can no longer hold? Art thou the first who could not rule, to abdicate in favor of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... feel that all I lost[bz] But saved thee all that Conscience fears; And blush for every pang it cost To spare the vain ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... an idea he dreaded and distrusted. It was not the morality of the course that bothered him. He was far too clear-headed to blink at the essential fact that at heart we were spies on a foreign power in time of peace, or to salve his conscience by specious distinctions as to our mode of operation. The foreign power to him was Dollmann, a traitor. There was his final justification, fearlessly adopted and held to the last. It was rather that, knowing his own limitations, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the new government was addressed to the bishops and all the priests of the territories taken away from the pontifical states; this prohibition was founded upon principles of dogma and religion. Henceforth the personal will of the Pope, his dignity as a sovereign, and his conscience as a priest, were all engaged in the struggle against the Emperor Napoleon. "Those who have succeeded in alarming the conscience of the holy father are still the strongest," Lefebvre, the charge-d'affaires of France, who ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... down the sensitiveness of the feelings. Being mere data, neither good nor evil in themselves, he may pervert them or lull them to sleep by any means at his command. Truckling, compromise, time-serving, capitulations of conscience, are conventionally opprobrious names for what, if successfully carried out, {105} would be on his principles by far the easiest and most praiseworthy mode of bringing about that harmony between inner and outer relations which is all that he means by good. The absolute moralist, on the other ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... that those who learn it will learn something of that sound religion, sober, trusty, cheerful, manful, which may be seen still, thank God, in country Church folk of the good old school; and which will, in the day of trial, be proof against the phantoms of a diseased conscience, and the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to himself the basis of his distrust. Sexual intercourse as a habit—this was the formula by which he summed it up to himself. To be right, to win the sanction of the intellect and the conscience, the sex-act must be the result of a supreme creative impulse. Its purpose was the making of a new soul—and this could never be right until those who took that responsibility had used their reasons, and determined that circumstances were such that the new soul ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair |
