Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Conscience
And I know of the future judgment
How dreadful so’er it be
That to sit alone with my conscience
Would be judgment enough for me.
Chas. William Stubbs—Alone with my conscience.
Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods,
Oh! ’tis a dreadful interval of time,
Filled up with horror all, and big with death!
Addison—Cato. Act I. Sc. 3.
They have cheveril consciences that will stretch.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt III. Sec. IV. Memb. 2. Subsect. 3.
Why should not Conscience have vacation
As well as other Courts o’ th’ nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and return?
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto II. L. 317.
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 83.
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 167.
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self condemn’d
He deals on his own soul.
Byron—Manfred. Act III. Sc. 1.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain’s silence, and o’er Glory’s din;
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.
Byron—The Island. Canto I. St. 6.
The Past lives o’er again
In its effects, and to the guilty spirit
The ever-frowning Present is its image.
Coleridge—Remorse, Act I. Sc. 2.
The still small voice is wanted.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. V. L. 687.
Oh, Conscience! Conscience! man’s most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend;
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! woe for me, his deadliest foe!
Crabbe—Struggles of Conscience. Last Lines.
O dignitosa coscienza e netta,
Come t’ è picciol fallo amaro morso.
O faithful conscience, delicately pure, how doth a little failing wound thee sore!
Dante—Purgatorio. III. 8.
Se tosto grazia risolva le schiume
Di vostra conscienza, si che chiaro
Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.
So may heaven’s grace clear away the foam from the conscience, that the river of thy thoughts may roll limpid thenceforth.
Dante—Purgatorio. XIII. 88.
Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust,
Die eine will sich von der andern trennen.
Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, and each withdraws from and repels its brother.
Goethe—Faust. I. 2. 307.
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength to prevent, it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Goldsmith—Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. XIII.
Hic murus aeneus esto,
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.
Be this thy brazen bulwark, to keep a clear conscience, and never turn pale with guilt.
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 60.
A cleere conscience is a sure carde.
Lyly—Euphues. P. 207. Arbor’s reprint. (1579).
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
Milton—Comus. L. 381.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumber’d, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue!
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 23.
O Conscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driven me, out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. X. L. 842.
Let his tormentor conscience find him out.
Milton—Paradise Regained. Bk. IV. L. 130.
Whom conscience, ne’er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. II. Ch. V. Of Conscience.
Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo.
According to the state of a man’s conscience, so do hope and fear on account of his deeds arise in his mind.
Ovid—Fasti. I. 485.
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 255.
True, conscious Honour is to feel no sin,
He’s arm’d without that’s innocent within;
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of Brass.
Pope—First Book of Horace. Ep. I. L. 93.
Some scruple rose, but thus he eas’d his thought,
“I’ll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I’ll now go twice—
And am so clear too of all other vice.”
Pope—Moral Essays. Ep. III. L. 365.
Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,
And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,
Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Pope—To Mrs. M. B., on her Birthday.
What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me more than Hell to shun,
That more than Heav’n pursue.
Pope—Universal Prayer.
Sic vive cum hominibus, tanquem deus videat; sic loquere cum deo, tanquam homines audiant.
Live with men as if God saw you; converse with God as if men heard you.
Seneca—Epistolæ Ad Lucilium. X.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 83. (“Away,” not “awry” in folio.)
They are our outward consciences.
Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 8.
Now, if you can blush and cry, “guilty,” cardinal,
You’ll show a little honesty.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 306.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities;
A still and quiet conscience.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 377.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 19.
Well, my conscience says, “Launcelot, budge not.” “Budge,” says the fiend: “budge not,” says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “you counsel well.” “Fiend,” say I, “you counsel well.”
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 2.
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Richard II. Act V. Sc. 6. L. 40.
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 222.
’Tis a blushing shamefast spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom; it fills one full of obstacles.
Richard III. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 141.
Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 179.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 193.
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 309.
I know thou art religious,
And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies,
Which I have seen thee careful to observe.
Titus Andronicus. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 75.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a Conscience in everything.
Sterne—Tristram Shandy. Bk. II. Ch. XVII.
La conscience des mourants calomnie leur vie.
The conscience of the dying belies their life.
Vauvenargues—Réflexions. CXXXVI.
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.
George Washington—Moral Maxims. Virtue and Vice. Conscience.
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach.
Wordsworth—The Old Cumberland Beggar. L. 136.