A Quote by C. E. M. Joad

Conscience was the barmaid of the Victorian soul. Recognizing that human beings were fallible and that their failings, though regrettable, must be humored, conscience would permit, rather ungraciously perhaps, the indulgence of a number of carefully selected desires.

C. E. M. Joad

Quote Topics

Beings Carefully Conscience Desires Fallible Human Human Being Human Beings Indulgence Must Number Perhaps Permit Rather Recognizing Selected Soul Though Victorian Were Would

Quote Author

C. E. M. Joad
English - Philosopher
August 12, 1891 - April 9, 1953

What is the importance of human lives? Is it their continuing alive for so many years like animals in a menagerie? The value of a man cannot be judged by the number of diseases from which he escapes. The value of a man is in his human qualities: in his character, in his conscience, in the nobility and magnanimity, of his soul. Torturing animals to prolong human life has separated science from the most important thing that life has produced - the human conscience.

John Cowper Powys

Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.

James Freeman Clarke

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.

Maltbie Davenport Babcock

What I cannot live with may not bother another man's conscience. The result is that conscience will stand against conscience.

Hannah Arendt

To me, the essence of keeping the soul nourished is obedience to one's conscience. I don't think that the soul can be nourished unless people have a strong sense of conscience that they have educated and developed and soaked in the universal and timeless principles of integrity and service. This way, the individual's soul becomes part of the universal soul of service, contribution, and making a difference.

Stephen Covey

A clear conscience is, for me, an occupied conscience-never empty-the conscience of a man at work until his last breath.

Gaston Bachelard

Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?" The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court." "And why is that?" "Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience—only much more convincingly.

Jim Butcher

We attacked selected military targets of the P.L.O. Around, civilians were hurt, I don't want to deny it. Very regrettable, very regrettable. We regret it deeply.

Menachem Begin

When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

Henry David Thoreau

To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.

Thomas Carlyle

There is seemingly no biological benefit to acting with conscience; if there were, only moral individuals would survive and procreate. Sadly, we know that's not true. The benefit of conscience is that you won't suffer guilt (private) or shame (public), and that by your own self-imposed definition, you are a moral human, a special kind of animal who takes unique pride in elevating him/herself above the termites.

Laura Schlessinger

We must imagine our lives well. We must engage our conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the nature and heart of man.

Laura Kasischke

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

Just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody, "Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler's land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it - the quality of temptation.

Hannah Arendt

My conscience is clear, because I know that in my conscience and in front of God I am guilty of nothing. I hope human justice will see at the same way.