"Conscience" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leedle heart it can be hush, and zo dthin, poor blood it nefer rush fire at a voman's touch. Blanca, I haf been still for days, vaiting for dthis hour. I loaf you, darling, till all my life is nodthing but von longing—I loaf you till I haf no conscience, no religion but my loaf. No, you shall not spik now! Blanca, you must marry me, here in Guatemala. You and I go not back to San Miguel unless you air ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... villagers prepared a huge dragon of pasteboard and marched out with it to a sandy common, since cut up by tin-works, but still known as Dragon's Moor. Here they would choose one of their number to be Mayor, and submit to him all questions of conscience, and such cases of notorious evil living as the law failed to provide for. Summary justice waited on all his decisions; and as the village wag was usually chosen for the post, you may guess that the horse-play ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Has the word Duty no meaning; is what we call Duty no divine Messenger and Guide, but a false earthly Fantasm, made-up of Desire and Fear, of emanations from the Gallows and from Dr. Graham's Celestial-Bed? Happiness of an approving Conscience! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom admiring men have since named Saint, feel that he was "the chief of sinners"; and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit (wohlgemuth), spend much of his time in fiddling? Foolish Word-monger and Motive-grinder, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... to be able to combat Luther with a clear conscience Erasmus had naturally to choose a point on which he differed from Luther in his heart. It was not one of the more superficial parts of the Church's structure. For these he either, with Luther, cordially rejected, such as ceremonies, observances, fasting, etc., or, though more moderately ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... without witness, and perhaps may be already gone from hence? Any other person but me would take some wretched person out of prison, and cause him to die, to satisfy the caliph; but I will not burden my conscience with such a barbarous action; I will rather die than save my life at this rate. He ordered the officers of police and justice to make strict search for the criminal: they sent their servants about, and they themselves were not idle, for they were no less concerned in this matter than ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... their leave, and Lloyd escaped from her mother's watchful eyes to follow her advice. When she came down to lunch, the flush was gone from her cheeks, but there was an uncomfortable pricking of her conscience that stayed with her all that afternoon, and deepened steadily after Miss ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... before his eyes, Fergus plunged deeply into the correspondence and plots of that unhappy period; and, like all such active agents, easily reconciled his conscience to going certain lengths in the service of his party, from which honour and pride would have deterred him had his sole object been the direct advancement of his own personal interest. With this insight into a bold, ambitious, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... most days to please his mother. But there came a day of rain, and sleet, and bitter east wind, when, if her conscience would have permitted, Mrs Beaton would have refrained from making her usual suggestion about the propriety of honouring the Sabbath-day by going to the kirk. As for John, he was no more afraid of the rain, and the sleet, and the east wind than he was afraid of ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... said. "You're fiddling while Rome is burning. How can you reconcile it to your conscience to play with cinematographs when a horrible conspiracy ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... could not console herself as can some women, nor did her deep passion wear away; on the contrary, it seemed to grow and gather with every passing week. Neither did she wish to lose it, she loved too well for that. It was better to be thus tormented by conscience and by hopelessness than to lose her cause ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... to be my helpmeet, my good angel, the inspiration of my life; don't begin by wishing me to do less than my best! I am not imagining difficulties—you know I am not—but even if I were, would it not be better to lose something for conscience' sake, than deliberately to sell myself for gain? I am in great perplexity, Lilias, and need all my courage. I beseech you not to ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... for the abundance of all things.' How sin palls upon us, and yet we commit it. The will is overborne, conscience is stifled. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... me. I did what I could to atone, rightly or wrongly it doesn't matter, because it is over and done with. There you are, old fellow, now you know what's been making me nervy. I've committed wholesale perjury, but I acted according to my conscience and I think according to justice. The thing has worried me, I admit, but it has passed, and I'm glad it's off my chest. One more liqueur, Andrew, and if you want to we'll talk about my ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be willing that any one should think anything of us, so long as we have the strength of a good conscience. We should be willing to appear in any light if that appearance will enhance our use, or is a necessity of growth. If an awkward appearance is necessary in the process of our journey toward freedom, we must not resist the fact of its existence, and should only dwell on it long ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... conscience reproached her for this, when after an absence of several Sabbaths Mrs. Foster again occupied her pew in the church of ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... agony and conflict human laws cease, for punishments have lost their terrors; even higher laws are then silent. But, in the pauses of the struggle, the voice of conscience resumes its power,—and the heart of man again relents. As Bertram went rocking over the waves numbed in body and exhausted in spirits, all about him hideous gloom, and the fitful flashes of lightning serving ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... an anxious time. For on my otherwise clear conscience rested the weight of that strange Suitcase. Fortunately Hannah was so busy that I was left to pack my belongings myself, and thus for a time my gilty secret was safe. I put my things in on top of the masculine articles, not ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who do what is lawful and right. Even the fierce freebooters who go raiding on other people's land, and Jove gives them their spoil—even they, when they have filled their ships and got home again live conscience-stricken, and look fearfully for judgement; but some god seems to have told these people that Ulysses is dead and gone; they will not, therefore, go back to their own homes and make their offers of marriage in the usual way, but waste his estate ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... sir, you look paley. A little cordial water? No? Then follow me, I beseech you, and I will bring you to the stranger's bed. You are not the first by many who has slept well below my roof," continued the old gentleman, mounting the stairs before his guest; "for good food, honest wine, a grateful conscience, and a little pleasant chat before a man retires, are worth all the possets and apothecary's drugs. See, sir," and here he opened a door and ushered Otto into a little whitewashed sleeping-room, "here you are in port. It is small, but it is airy, and the sheets are clean and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... alone. He then went and sat down in the shade at a little distance from his companions, who looked on at him with dull apathy, while he gave way to the feelings which the prickings of his awakened conscience had produced. How he and the mate had got possessed of the pistols we could not guess, till we found the chest of one of the emigrants, a young man, broken open, and from this they had helped themselves. One of them soon after came for a spade which had been ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... me you are making him a little thief, like all the rest," said Sibilet; "he never lies down at night without some sin on his conscience." ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... instant, and by degrees every murmur died away, and I lay down and slept heavily, for mine was weary trouble. There was no guilty conscience to keep me awake. ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... conscience of Europeans the miseries which had befallen the natives of the New World through the Christian conquerors and their priests. He was not indeed an enthusiastic preacher of Progress. He is unable to decide between the comparative ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... do not agree in this circumstance, and pretend that Little Thumb never robbed the Ogre at all, and that he only thought he might very justly, and with a safe conscience, take off his boots of seven leagues, because he made no other use of them but to run after little children. These folks affirm that they are very well assured of this, and the more as having drunk and eaten often ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... doctrine, divinely revealed, which affirms that, alongside religious society, there is civil society, that alongside the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, there is the power of temporal magistrates, invested, in their own domain, with a full sovereignty, and to whom we owe in conscience obedience and respect in all things morally permitted, and belonging to ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... might say that too if my mind and conscience were as clear as yours. But they're not. It is true I have long ago brought my sins to Jesus and had them washed away in His precious blood. And I never cease to pray ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... drawing herself proudly aside; 'begone! It is thou that hast slain my brother! Is it to thy care, thy hands yet reeking with his blood, that they will give the sister Ha! thou turnest pale! thy conscience smites thee! thou tremblest at the thunderbolt of the avenging god! Pass on, and leave me ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... other, again to quote Foch, that "above men is morality." This knowledge brought him many victories. But at critical junctures, as in his 1918 appeal to the voters and in the treaty fight, he forgot that morality was above one man, himself. He excelled in appeals to the heart and conscience of the nation, a gift Mr. Harding has not; the lesser arts of the politician, tact and skill in the handling and selecting of ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... but pressed straight to their happy or unhappy goals. But some of us hear the guns saluting those who doubted and were lost, or seemed to achieve little; whose high hopes perished by the way; whom fate bound or frustrated; whom conscience or divided counsel drove athwart into paths belying their promise; whom, wrapping both in one rest, earth covers at ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... contrary the violations of such laws are the breaches through which enters ruin. Besides this, into this country has come a doctrine of evil theologians and jurists and confessors, who, weakening the force of the laws of the kings in their relation to the conscience, open a very broad field for the violation of what your Majesty so justly and prudently orders. [In the margin: "I say this in regard to the decrees which concern commerce between these islands and Mexico, as well as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... would be a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law might say, no matter what the courts might adjudge. To Barclay what was legal was right, and what the courts had passed upon—that was legal. But Hendricks sat with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his figures, trying to silence his conscience. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... neither quote the Scriptures nor the Fathers in my defence; for you and I would not be apt to interpret them in the same sense. I shall content myself with observing that, in spite of all your anger, I shall hearken to the voice of my own conscience, which tells me that my acts are those of a wise lawgiver, and of a faithful defender of religion. With this voice, my own reason, and help from above, I am not afraid of being in error. [Footnote: Joseph's own words.—Hubner, i., p. 287.] At the same time, I assure your holiness ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... may!" said Mr. Deighton, and looking at the mystic sign, the use of which he had so often tried to put down as a silly, heathenish practice, he felt a twinge of conscience. ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... peace," says Gibbon, "introduced the distinction of the vulgar and the ascetic Christians. The loose and imperfect practice of religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or magistrate, soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... question, after they had used it to carry the Union, within a few weeks of the consummation of that Union. The cause of this crisis was the invincible obstinacy of the King, who had taken into his head, at the time of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall from Ireland, that his coronation oath bound him in conscience to resist the Catholic claims. The suggestion of this obstacle was originally Lord Clare's; and though Lord Kenyon and Lord Stowell had declared it unfounded in law, Lord Loughborough and Lord Eldon were unfortunately of a different opinion. With ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... liberated from their state rooms after having been kept shut up about two hours. Tiger did not mind this confinement at all; for her conscience being quiet, she did not trouble herself about it in the least, but slept nearly the whole time. It was, however, quite a severe punishment to Hilbert; for his mind was all the time tormented with feelings of vexation, self-reproach, ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... wrought wonderfully upon his mind. "Ah! my son," cried he, "you have an excellent contrivance; and had it not been for your invention, I should never have thought of this way of getting you some wine without any scruple of conscience." Away he went to execute the orders, which he did in a little time; and, upon his return, Noor ad Deen taking the pitchers out of the panniers, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... so ashamed of the part I was taking in these proceedings that but for my regard for Alice's feelings I would have packed the carpenter off home and left the barn open to the tramp and all his kind. As it was my conscience gave me no rest until I had induced neighbor Tiltman to extract the cartridges from the pistol, which service he did so cleverly that the carpenter knew nothing about it, and continued to bluster and bloviate like a dragoon ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... She felt her cheeks flush with happiness when he came near. Her eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with fond pleasure. "Ah, if she could have had a son like that, how she would have loved him!" "Wait," says Conscience, the dark scoffer mocking within her, "wait, Beatrix Esmond! You know you will weary of this inclination, as you have of all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that the boy may perish, and you won't have a tear ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... creature carved in stone, waiting for the sharp, inevitable stroke—so swift at last, so long in coming. "O abominable flat head, with icy-cold, humanlike, fiend-like eyes, I shall cut you off and throw you away!" And away I flung it, far enough in all conscience: yet I walked home troubled with a fancy that somewhere, somewhere down on the black, wet soil where it had fallen, through all that dense, thorny tangle and millions of screening leaves, the white, lidless, living eyes were following me still, and would ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... I sometimes wonder whether people realize how much harm this hysterical philanthropy—this purely sentimental faddism, does; how it retards the natural advance of civilization, throws dust in people's eyes, salves the easy conscience of the rich man, who bargains for immortality with a few strokes of the pen, and finds mischievous occupation for a good many weak minds and parasitical females. Believe me, that all personal charity ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been leaning the other way, and now he turned on Basil with all the bitterness of broken friendship. To such a man the elastic faith of the Homoeans was a welcome refuge. If they wasted little courtesy on their convert, they did not press him to strain his conscience by signing what he ought ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... should have occasion to discuss with our friends in France the attitude of this nation toward the war, you may say that it is my opinion that the conscience of the country is now awake, and that before long we shall be shoulder to shoulder with them ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon Africa, which, at some happy period, may blaze with full lustre." But this policy of repression cannot last much longer. If a handful of Indians in a matter of conscience can so firmly resist what they consider injustice, what could the Coloured races not do if they were to adopt this practice of passive resistance? We must all admire what these British Indians have shown, and are showing, in their determination ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... said, as she stood with the door open in her hands, "if you will reflect where the money came from, your conscience will tell you without much difficulty where it should go to. And when you think of your brother's children, whom this time last year you had hardly seen, think also of John Ball's children, who have welcomed you into this house as their dearest relative. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... their vivacity and intelligence, as well as their beauty. Meanwhile he had won a reputation for his good-natured attentions to "wall-flowers." Such kindly efforts were rarely made at the promptings of conscience. The truth was, he enjoyed life so fully himself that he disliked to see any one having a dismal time. It gave him genuine pleasure to come to a plain-featured, neglected damsel, and set all her blood tingling by a brief whirl in a dance or a breezy chat that did her good, body and soul, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... shouted Jack, who was not a bit afraid, for he saw the giant was so tipsy he could hardly stand, much less run; and he himself had young legs and a clear conscience, which carry a man a long way. So, after leading the giant a considerable race, he contrived to be first at the top of the bean-stalk, and then scrambled down it as fast as he could, the harp playing all the while the most melancholy music, till he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... though not even he had guessed at her danger. What could save her now, alone, with a perpetual weariness of spirit, and a feeling of physical weakness amounting to positive pain? Yet if she went but a few steps forward, she would sink into the gloomy depths, which for the moment her quickened conscience could so clearly perceive. If David could but be at home now! If she could but have her little son to occupy her time ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... bachelor sources of comfort. Redclyffe, whose destiny had hitherto, and up to a very recent period, been to pass a feverishly active life, was greatly impressed by all these tokens of learned ease,—a degree of self-indulgence combined with duties enough to quiet an otherwise uneasy conscience,—by the consideration that this pensioner acted a good part in a world where no one is entitled to be an unprofitable laborer. He thought within himself, that his prospects in his own galvanized country, that seemed to him, a few years since, to offer such a career ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Church for succour. I knelt to an ecclesiastic. I did a ludicrous and a shameful thing, knowing it in advance to be a barren farce. I obeyed his wish. The tale will be laughable. I obeyed him. I would not have it on my conscience that the commission of any deed ennomic, however unwonted, was refused by me to serve Alvan. You are my witness, Tresten, that for a young woman of common honesty I was ready to pack and march. Qualities of mind-mind! They were out of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... as yet by those around him, were prompted, whatever he might say to quiet his conscience, not so much by the motives of the historian as by those of the collector. This, even in a place so ill-adapted for seeing and hearing as the attic in the Rue de Beaune, where the bargains were usually struck, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... idealists, yet today there is a wound in our national conscience. America will never be whole as long as the right to life granted by our Creator is denied to the unborn. For the rest of my time, I shall do what I can to see that this ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... the Cure, "and with such a weight of sin upon your conscience; ready to be hurried before the eternal judgment seat, without having acknowledged, even in your own heart, the iniquity ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... to point out. It is history repeating itself. More than three hundred years ago the ancestors from whom my father drew his name and blood were French Protestants, who had been compelled to flee from the religious persecutions of that day, and for the sake of conscience to find an asylum in Holland. Fifty years after they had fled and found safety in Holland, the little congregation of Independents from the English village of Scrooby, under the pastorate of John Robinson, was forced to fly, and with difficulty ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... justice which was assumed to be vested in the king as a natural result of his paternal authority. The same view appears in a different and a quainter form in the old doctrine that Equity flowed from the king's conscience—the improvement which had in fact taken place in the moral standard of the community being thus referred to an inherent elevation in the moral sense of the sovereign. The growth of the English constitution rendered such a theory unpalatable ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... my dear ladies, I am quite against your project, for you do not realize the anxieties and disappointments that are before you, I am sure. The child will give you infinite trouble. I think he will run away. And yet I cannot in good conscience say that I believe love's labour must be lost. He may return to the woods and wilds; but I hope he will carry something ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... George Whitstable by her side,—she meant to have good things, the goodness of which was infinitely enhanced by the badness of her sister's things. She had been so greatly despised that the charm of despising again was irresistible. And she was able to reconcile her cruelty to her conscience by telling herself that duty required her to show implacable resistance to such a marriage as this which her sister contemplated. Therefore Georgiana dragged out another day, not in the least knowing what ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... are reputed base, yet you have a better sprinkling; you are sprinkled in the Spirit, that you may be pure from within. The Jews were sprinkled outwardly with the blood of bullocks, but we are sprinkled inwardly in the conscience, so that the heart is made pure ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... father's employ, and that no matter what my personal convictions may be regarding the work he has been doing I may only act with loyalty to his lightest command while I remain upon his payroll. That you are here," he added, "is my excuse for continuing my connection with certain things of which my conscience does not approve." ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... away in all conscience from Venice in the year 1268, and Venice was all unwitting of its existence, far beyond the sunrise. Yet there was in the city of the lagoons that year, watching the same procession of the gilds ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Continent, no man ever heard of a question being raised, or a faction being embattled, upon any demur (great or small) as to the moral grounds of a war. To be able to face the trials of a war—that was its justification; and to win victories—that was its ratification for the conscience.' ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... soon wore off as he breathed the fresh air, moist from lush meadows, and sweet from hedges pink and white with hawthorn bloom. The thought of being pent up on such a day grew more and more unbearable, and a blithe sense of freedom from all restraint blunted the prick of conscience. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... of the unemployed," he answered. "You see, I have been almost converted to opinions which cut away the ground from under my own feet. I have lived so far a delightful life, and now my conscience is beginning to nag me. The question is whether I am enjoying myself at some poor ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... homesick, Mother Roberts, and my conscience was hurting me; my, how it was hurting! There was I decked out in gay cheap silks and laces, drinking, and smoking cigarettes, and carrying on and doing things to please people that I just hated; but I had to; there was no getting out of it. All the time I was ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... go fast enough at his fences the first time I rode him,' observed Mr. Sponge, drawing the curb slightly so as to show the horse's fine arched neck to advantage; 'but he went quick enough to-day, in all conscience,' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... sister named Violet. The three of them lived by themselves in one of the most substantial and beautiful houses in Centerville; so the boy's sudden sense of anxiety could be easily understood. He was really the man of the house, and often felt his conscience stab him when he left ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... what that other woman who once was ME had done. "Oh, Jack, do let me! It's hateful to know I'm a murderess and to go unpunished. It's hateful to draw back from the fate I'd have imposed on another. I'd like to be hanged for it. I want to be hanged. It's the only possible way to appease one's conscience." ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... one training that is needed," said Abner massively: "the training of the sense of social justice—such training of the public conscience as will insist upon seeing that each and every freeman gets an ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a moment of ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... began to produce the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio—a string of names to conjure with—all roused the intellect. The dawn of the Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before the wonderful development ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Sanskrit. But we are here speaking not of the men, but of the works which they left behind; and here the difference between the two is enormous. The fact is, that Colebrooke was gifted with the critical conscience of a scholar—Sir W. Jones was not. Sir W. Jones could not wish for higher testimony in his favor than that of Colebrooke himself. Immediately after his death, Colebrooke wrote ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... cried all of a tremble, "it is best as it is," and she made me swear that I would tell nothing of all this. The oath sat lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... and his feet stretched out towards the ruddy blaze of the fire—seemed at first sight to imply that happy after-dinner condition of perfect satisfaction with oneself and things in general, which is the natural outcome of a good cook, a good conscience, and a ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... a scruple of decorum had unseasonably rose up in Susannah's conscience, about holding the candle, whilst Slop tied it on; Slop had not treated Susannah's distemper with anodynes,—and so a quarrel ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... he had no desire to recede. He had acted according to the dictates of his conscience and he had ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... case of discovery. The forgeries became numerous, and the total amount on that day when the passage of a new tariff saved the venturesome speculator, was very large. Hannibal was at this time in foreign parts, or at least so the merchant supposed. He soothed his conscience with the reflection that this additional wrong act would enable him to right the others that preceded it. And things might have gone well had not the negro returned, consumed with the love he bore the younger daughter, and had not his love turned ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... And yet, one meenit after, I see you standing there like a daft gowk instead o' hustling for food as fast as your legs can move you? Ma conscience! But you tak' a deal of ceevilising! You dinna ken the first meaning o' the ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... and George was by that time at odds with many of his own people. He died in 1825. His last hours were disturbed by remorse arising from an incident in the Boyd affair. He had not, he thought, properly avenged the death of his father—blown up by the powder-barrel. Such was the Maori conscience.] ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... were only a single man, there is nothing I should like better than to join you. But I have a wife and family, and I can't reconcile it to my conscience to risk being drowned."—Report from the Personal ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... intention of a pledge that matters;' and I saw that all was over, for he had abandoned definition, and was plunged back into the horrible mazes of Conscience and Natural Religion. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... without heart or conscience, makes of little repute the workman's most shining glory—skill; steals rudely from him the esthetic pleasure in his product, and leaves him mentally crippled before his work, how little force has that honored appeal, 'The dignity of labor'! Talk as we will, in this machine-ridden time, the 'dignity ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to ask whether Your Grace would be so kind as to assist me in resolving a case of conscience which, I feel sure, must be exercising the minds and hearts of many of my brother clergy at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... beginning to be abolished by a contrary practice, and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions and sentiments of the age. Principle, therefore, stood on the one side; power on the other; and if the English had been actuated by conscience more than by present interest, the controversy must soon, by the general defection of Henry's subjects, have been decided against him. Becket, in order to forward this event, filled all places with exclamations against the violence which he had suffered. He compared ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... The human conscience is so constituted that many people deviate from the truth for no apparent reason whatever. Some are given to exaggeration; some habitually pretend to know that of which they are entirely ignorant; others are so inaccurate that everything they say is open to grave suspicion. If ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... knowing that a delicately primed bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but the thought that hurt to his country might come from his well-meant labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few days before his patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of naval students which included Cary, had said: "We have concealed nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion. Remember what you have seen, ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... back-woods town where the standards of life were so narrow that all who could lived out of them in degrading secrecy, and make him feel himself unworthy when he had lived openly in a way about which his own conscience had not troubled him? Why did he hesitate to tell her about his affair with the Violet and his anxiety about her contract, and why should his face burn at the thought of telling her how he had coolly ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and amateur detective, had seldom been more at peace with the world and his own conscience than when he entered the dining-room of his cosy flat this ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... foolish, but at the same time he added inwardly that he was a man and not an angel, a sinner and not a saint, so that there were limits, etc., etc., etc., using impossible arguments to quieten a lively conscience that did not approve ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the story all too plainly. The same evil result follows, ending perhaps in death, or worse, in insanity. Aside from the injury the girl does herself by yielding to this habit, there is one other reason which appeals to the conscience, and that is, self-abuse is an offence against moral law—it is putting to a vile, selfish use the organs which were given for a ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... of the rhythmical and regular conventions which he should thus have associated with himself. He had broken with his fatherland, he had thrown over dynastic laws, he had gone by his will alone, and no red tape. Perhaps there was the solution. He had gone by his conscience. I have said I was convinced of his conscientiousness, and possibly in these strange departures from the code of his fathers he was following a new and internal guide, to the detriment of his own material interests. He had abandoned the essence while retaining the forms ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... was, I must say, moderate in the extreme—ten or twelve marks, if I remember rightly, for two nights' lodging and almost two days' board for three people. And such as it was, they had given us of their best. I felt a little twinge of conscience, when I said good-bye to the poor woman, for having harboured any doubts of the establishment. But when the gruff landlord, standing outside the door, smoking of course, nodded a surly "adieu" in return to our parting greeting, my feeling ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... though he spares no waste of words or conscience, He wants the Tory turn of thorough nonsense, That thoughtless air, that makes light Hodge so jolly;— Void of all weight, he wantons in his folly. No so forced BAYES, whom sharp remorse attends, While his heart loaths the cause his tongue defends; Hourly ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... loaded a cartridge lightly with a pinch of dust shot, spread some crumbs near the big log behind my tent, squeaked the call a few times, and sat down to wait. "These mice are strangers to me," I told Conscience, who was protesting a little, "and the woods are full of them, and ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... Knight said it must all be done over again. This made Katy crosser than ever; and almost before she thought, she had whispered to Clover, "How hateful!" And then, when just before recess all who had "communicated" were requested to stand up, her conscience gave such a twinge that she was forced to get up with the rest, and see a black mark put against her name on the list. The tears came into her eyes from vexation; and, for fear the other girls would notice them, she made a bolt for the yard as soon as the bell rang, and mounted up all ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... only too well, that he is utterly in the money-lender's power. He knows he must go on playing, vainly endeavoring to recover himself, and with each fresh loss he drinks deeper to smother his fears and conscience. It is the result of the weakness of his nature—a weakness which I have always known would sooner or later lead to his undoing. Jacky, girl, I fear you will one day have to marry Lablache or your uncle's ruin ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... far as it is more than mere reporting and mere money making, so far as it undertakes to frame and guide opinion, to educate the thought and instruct the conscience of the community, by editorial comment, interpretation and homily, based on the news, is under obligation to the community to be truthful, sincere, and uncorrupted; to enlighten the understanding, not to darken counsel; to uphold justice and honor with unfailing ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... lust." They pretend decency and ornament; but let them take heed, that while they set out their bodies they do not damn their souls; 'tis [5033]Bernard's counsel: "shine in jewels, stink in conditions; have purple robes, and a torn conscience." Let them take heed of Isaiah's prophecy, that their slippers and attires be not taken from them, sweet balls, bracelets, earrings, veils, wimples, crisping-pins, glasses, fine linen, hoods, lawns, and sweet savours, they become not bald, burned, and stink upon ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... before me to confess, she now showed herself quiet and even sullen; nor did the gleam of passion, which I thought that I discerned smouldering in her dark eyes, seem to promise either weakness or repentance. However, I had too often observed the power of the unknown over a guilty conscience to ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... disrelish; And, if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear my life may perish among those, To whom these days shall be of ancient date." The brightness, where enclos'd the treasure smil'd, Which I had found there, first shone glisteningly, Like to a golden mirror in the sun; Next answer'd: "Conscience, dimm'd or by its own Or other's shame, will feel thy saying sharp. Thou, notwithstanding, all deceit remov'd, See the whole vision be made manifest. And let them wince who have their withers wrung. What though, when tasted first, thy voice shall prove Unwelcome, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... young to the waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance and cries. They are gentle and affectionate in captivity—full of tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (l. c. p. 156), will show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar inclination for disarranging things in the cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap would especially attract ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... thing I'm going to do," said Courtney, springing to his feet. And he did it an hour later. He succeeded in borrowing ten thousand dollars from a millionaire who had come to New York from Cleveland to live and die a Gothamite. With sublime disregard for the thing called conscience, Courtney included this new debt in the list to be prepared for his father, and permitted the old gentleman to settle without so much as a qualm of self-reproach. He considered it high finance, I believe. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... drew back and spoke a little coldly. Now that the secret was out, Mrs. McGuire was troubled evidently with qualms of conscience. "He never said much. He didn't want it ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said in regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise of head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and later in Congress ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... and the power of Russia are inseparably bound up with the welfare and liberties of all the nationalities that constitute the whole Empire. Let us then conceive this truth. Let us act in accordance with our intelligence and our conscience, and then we are sure that the disappearance of all kinds of persecution of the Jews and their complete emancipation, so as to be our equals in all rights of citizenship, will form one of the conditions of a real constructive imperial policy." And we are the more persuaded that these views will ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... I married. I had been engaged for more than a year, but had not been willing to assume the support of a wife until I felt that my pecuniary position was so assured that I could do so with full satisfaction to my own conscience. There was now no doubt in regard to this position, either in my mind or in that of my wife. I worked with great steadiness and regularity; I knew exactly where to place the productions of my pen, and could calculate, with a fair ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Don Quixote pay me for some part of the work he has destroyed," said Master Pedro, "and I would be content, and his worship would ease his conscience, for he cannot be saved who keeps what is another's against the owner's will, and makes ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a sudden. "Everything is stale for a stale soul. Does he count on that? Senor, you speak well; you have made me a picture of him. He has heard that I have made religion the pillow of my conscience, eh? He folds his hands, eh?—thin, waxen hands, clasping in piety upon his counterpane, eh? He will wear the air of a thin saint and bless me in a beautiful voice? Am I right? Am ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... going to inquire too closely into your reasons for attempting to ruin an innocent girl," he said sternly. "That is a matter for your own conscience. But I tell you, Mr. Milburgh, that if you are innocent—both of the robbery and of the murder—then I've never met a guilty person in ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee will not be represented in the cabinet; this may breed trouble, and we have trouble enough, in all conscience. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... still see that that was a legitimate deduction from the Scripture. "The glory of this world passeth away," and I had professed to be "dead with Christ" to it. The difference is this. I am now as "dead" as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to be sinful, but I have not to torment myself in a (fundamentally ascetic) struggle against innocent and healthy impulses. I now, with deliberate approval, "love the world and the things of the world." I can feel patriotism, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... to my surprise and horror, when I looked into the eye of my monitor, my own eye would not waver nor admit subjection! I rebelled at my own conscience. I, John Cowles, had all my life been a strong man. I had wrestled with any who came, fought with any who asked it, matched with any man on any terms he named. Conflict was in my blood, and always I had fought blithely. But ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... neighbour's apartment, there was a chink large enough to permit me, when mounted upon the stove, to overlook the greater part of the adjacent room. I availed myself of this privilege, though not without those same twinges of conscience which I had felt some minutes before when following the young lady. The apartment was poorly furnished, and yet, despite this scantiness of appointment, there was unmistakable evidence of refinement. Everything visible in ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... great change had come over Mr. Wang; his proud, overbearing manner had changed, and he became a humble, devout follower of the lowly Nazarene. God used a dream to awaken this man's conscience—as is not uncommon in China. One night he dreamed he was struggling in a deep, miry pit; but try as he would he could find no way of escape. When about to give up in despair, he looked up and saw Mr. Goforth and another missionary on the bank above him, with their hands stretched out to save ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... mind than to make implications. It's you who're so suspicious. Just as if you had a bad conscience—something really to conceal." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... quality" of Hunston was not without interest in the day's proceedings. He did not see the carriages; to himself he seemed suddenly to walk in a great and silent solitude. There was noise enough about him, in all conscience, for every sentence that fell from Hare's lips was punctuated by a salvo; but the tumult beat itself to stillness against the closed fastness of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ploughman appeared, loaded with the jackboots, buff coat, and other accoutrements which had been issued forth for the service of the day, and laid them before the steward; demurely assuring him, that "whether it were the colic, or a qualm of conscience, she couldna tak upon her to decide, but sure it was, Cuddie had been in sair straits a' night, and she couldna say he was muckle better this morning. The finger of Heaven," she said, "was in it, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hotel where Sir Lionel used to stop occasionally when he was a boy. Afterward, we went to see the village schoolmaster, whom he knew; such a nice man, who paints pictures as well as teaches the children—and I felt guilty at being introduced as Sir Lionel's "ward." I think my conscience is like a bruised peach, pinched by many fingers to see if it's ripe, I have that guilty feeling so often! When we spoke of the schoolmaster's versatility, he laughed and said it was "nothing to his predecessor's," who used to cut the children's ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... that isn't true," said Beth, with a twinge of conscience. "I own it has interested me to see what he has developed into; but surely that isn't unfair?" She ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... rules prescribed. As soon as a crime has been reported to a French magistrate, he is at liberty to do any thing he chooses in order to discover the guilty one. Absolutely master of the case, responsible only to his conscience, and endowed with extraordinary powers, he proceeds as he thinks best. But, in this affair at Valpinson, M. Galpin had been carried away by the rapidity of the events themselves. Since the first question addressed to Cocoleu, up to the present moment, ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... have been stirred. But what is a girl's fancy? Nothing worth considering. Letters, if allowed, might nourish the fancy up into something else. She would destroy this first one. She had determined on that. Yet she lingered. Conscience spoke uneasily. What if she were misled by appearances, and Diana had more than a fancy for this young fellow? Then she would crush it! Nobody would be the wiser, and nobody would die of grief; those things were done in stories only. Mrs. Starling hesitated nevertheless, with her hand on the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... a man desires he must fight for and take as best he may. From his youth upwards he had coveted little that he had not obtained; the success was everything, the means used did not trouble him. If fair ones failed, foul ones were resorted to, and his conscience troubled him not at all. If, without hindrance to himself, he could return some service for one rendered, he did so, and with a certain class of men and women won for himself a name for generosity. To withstand ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... anything more was known. You may see him among Greek and Roman statues as a young man, with a sort of high basket-shaped Persian turban on his head. But, at least, he was found so pleasant and accommodating a conscience-keeper, that he spread, with Isis, his newly-found mother, or wife, over the whole East, and even to Rome. The Consuls there—50 years B.C.—found the pair not too respectable, and pulled down their temples. But, so popular were they, in spite of ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... Youghal," said the Archdeacon; "he will be able to tell us what is going to happen in the next forty-eight hours. I hear the Prime Minister says it is a matter of conscience, and they will stand or fall ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... to the cradle as soon as my cousin was out of sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon sash about her smooth neck. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... attended with Some Inconveniences" is such a frightful satire upon the abuses of Christianity by its professed followers that it is impossible for us to say whether Swift intended to point out needed reforms, or to satisfy his conscience,[190] or to perpetrate a joke on the Church, as he had done on poor Partridge. So also with his "Modest Proposal," concerning the children of Ireland, which sets up the proposition that poor Irish farmers ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... you a proposition, you have not accepted it, and I desire that you will consider that I have made none. At the same time my conscience will not allow me to—. Please alter the figures I named to thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the company—I will stick to it if it breaks my heart!" The stranger looked amused, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of having an actual existence, are mere illusions, owing their birth to the exercise of force. It is might that has determined and defined what is right. And hence it follows that it is needless for a man to trouble himself with the monitions of conscience, or to be troubled thereby, for conscience, instead of being anything real, is an imaginary fiction, or, at the best, owes its origin to education, and is the creation of our social state. Hence the wise will give himself no concern as to a meritorious act or a crime, seeing ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... angels might have enjoyed a moment of unmixed joy, for in that brief walk from shed to house Abner Simpson;'s conscience waked to life and attained sufficient strength to prick and sting, to provoke remorse, to incite penitence, to do all sorts of divine and beautiful things it was meant for, but had ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... educational institutions where, as in general society, but very few were found who believed in universal freedom. But still he never swerved from what he believed to be right. Justice was his plea; justice was his battle cry; and it came to be said of him that "He was conscience incarnated." ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... accustomed seat from mere force of habit, which ruled his automaton body. For all energy, both physical and mental, seemed to have retreated inwards to some of the great citadels of life, there to do battle against the Destroyer, Conscience. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell |
