A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
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One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That's what the human family is all about.
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.
I submit that 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 law.
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.
Everyone has his own conscience,
and there should be no rules about
how a conscience should function.
Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.
You’re a guardian angel now.”.... I’m your guardian angel,” he said. “I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?” “Guard your body.” His smile tipped higher. “I take my job seriously, which means I’m going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.
One of the turning points in the look of the Guardian is when we decided Logan Thackeray would be a Guardian as opposed to a Warrior. Logan's own protective nature and the fact that the humans have been knocked back into defensive positions informed a lot of what the Guardian became.
I am dubious as to how far we can move toward global community-which is the only way to achieve international peace-until we learn the basic principles of community in our own individual lives and personal spheres of influence.
Storytelling awakens us to that which is real. Honest. . . . it transcends the individual. . . . Those things that are most personal are most general, and are, in turn, most trusted. Stories bind. . . . They are basic to who we are. A story composite personality which grows out of its community. It maintains a stability within that community, providing common knowledge as to how things are, how things should be -- knowledge based on experience. These stories become the conscience of the group. They belong to everyone.
To create a community of radical scholars, men and women who recognize that rules and social conventions are arbitrary, but have mastered them nonetheless, a community which shares such a scorn and disrespect for the present society that it can embrace the whole bundle of rules and subvert them thereby, that should be our goal.
There's no way to escape the culture that has evolved, from which we ourselves have evolved. Naturally, we stress it, break it up, reassemble it to suit our own needs. But it is there - a source of vital strength.
An individual can be truly moral only when they are their own master. From the moment when they awaken to a comprehension of that which is equitable and good it is for them to direct their own movements, to seek in the their conscience reasons for their actions, and to perform them simply, without either fearing punishment or looking for reward.
Success is not to be gained by a blind and slavish following of anyone's rules or advice, our own any more than any other person's. There is no royal road to success- no patent process by which the unsuccessful are to be magically transformed. . . . Rules and advice may greatly assist-and they undoubtedly do this-but the real work must be accomplished by the individual. He or she must carve out his or her own destiny.
The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.
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