A Quote by Henry David Thoreau
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
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Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.
We may gamble on outsmarting the law; we may even gamble on the leniency of man and the mercy of God-but no man ever won a gamble with his own conscience. Even should he think he has beaten his conscience into submission, his misdeeds still leave their mark upon him. Anyone who gambles against this fact has already lost his gamble.
True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right and wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has developed with mankind ... If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?
A clear conscience is, for me, an occupied conscience-never empty-the conscience of a man at work until his last breath.
When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.
Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne ; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous.
Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is "faithful in that which is least" is dependable in all the world.
Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his or her conscience and get its approval, without knowing force or specious knowledge, then he or she begins to know what real happiness is.
They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.
The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.
What I cannot live with may not bother another man's conscience. The result is that conscience will stand against conscience.
Obama said he went to Libya because of his conscience. Did anyone ever wrestle with his conscience and lose?
. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
Everyone has his own conscience,
and there should be no rules about
how a conscience should function.
My understanding of the Electoral College is that they have the right to vote for who they want. So they should vote their conscience, and if their conscience leads them that way, they should follow their conscience.
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