Conscience

The still small voice is wanted.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book V. The Winter Morning Walk

In final analysis, the minority that we respect is first and foremost the smallest minority of all -- the individual conscience.
~ William Orville Douglas, Being An American (1948).

The court is really the keeper of the conscience, and the conscience is the Constitution.
~ William Orville Douglas

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
~ William Faulkner, in Writers at Work, First Series (Interview; 1958).

I'm glad I haven't got the sort of conscience I've got to nurse like a sick puppy all the time.
~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (October 1929). April Sixth, 1928

No man keeps the conscience of his fellow man: no man or body or men, no Pope, or priest, or conclave, or Council, or Church.
~ William Edward (W.E.) Forster, (14 November 1883)

Most of us follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. We push it in front of us in the direction we want to go.
~ Billy Graham, in Tony Castle The New Book of Christian Quotations (1982)

He that acts unjustly is the worst rebel to himself; and though now ambition's trumpet and the drum of power may drown the sound, yet conscience will one day speak loudly to him.
~ William Havard

The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.
~ William Dean Howells, Indian Summer (1886).

I think middle age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Quoted in Observer (London, 8 June 1930).

[A] bad conscience increases the weight of every other burden.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). Psychology and The Teaching Art

Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919).

The belief in authority is the source of conscience; which is therefore not the voice of God in the heart of man, but the voice of some men in man.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

The bite of conscience, like the bite of a dog into a stone, is a stupidity.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The sting of conscience teacheth one to sting.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Conscience is inherently a judgment not only about a given action or policy, but also about what kind of person one intends to be, about the quality of character one actually intends to possess.
~ William G. O'Neill, in National Defense University Press Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ; Spring 1996). Moral Obligation Versus "Beeper Ethics": A Review Essay

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.
~ William Penn (in the Tower of London; 1669), Passages from Writings of William Penn.

Cowardice asks, Is it safe? Expediency asks, Is it politic? Vanity asks, Is it popular? But conscience asks, Is it right?
~ William Morley (W.M.) Punshon

I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.
~ Will Rogers, (1927).

It's a beautiful thought (Mother's Day), but it's somebody with a hurting conscience that thought of the idea.
~ Will Rogers

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.
~ Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest (1924). Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes

A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act III, scene ii

Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act I, scene i

Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act V, scene iii

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

It makes a man a coward. . . . It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act I, scene iv

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act V, scene iii

O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act V, scene iii

The play's the thing wherein
I'll catch the conscience of the king.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene i

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II

To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.
~ Charles William Stubbs

Begin your day with a clean conscience in every way. Cleanliness is honesty.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, from Sketches and Travels in London (1847). Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: On Tailoring -- And Toilettes in General

Men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained.
~ Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the Cause of Conscience (1644).

Conscience is the present opinion a man has of his own actions.
~ (Bishop) Thomas Wilson, in Maxims of Piety and of Christianity (first published in 1781).