Conscience
Print the Legend
--Schiller, _The Death of Wallenstein_, 1799
The wormwood of conscience embitters even sorrow.
--Jean Paul Richter, _Titan_, 1803
Temptation is the voice of the suppressed evil; consciences is
the voice of the repressed good.
--J. A. Hadfield, _Psychology and Morals_, 1923
Conscience: the Inner voice which warns you that someone may
be looking.
--H. L. Mencken, _A Little Book in C Major_, 1916
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
--Shakespeare, _Henry VIII_
A person may sometimes have a clear conscience simply because
his head is empty.
--Ralph W. Sockman, _How to Believe_, 1953
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
Graham J Weeks
Unknown
Conscious is when you are aware of something, and conscience is when you
wish you weren't. -- Author Unknown
There is not pillow so soft as a clear conscience. -- French Proverb
A bad conscience embitters the sweetest comforts; a good conscience
sweetens the bitterest crosses. -- Wendell Phillips
Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason -- I do not accept
the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each
other -- my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will
not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor
safe. God help me. Amen. -- Martin Luther, at the Imperial Diet at
Worms, 18 April 1521.
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?"
Expedience asks the question, "Is it political?"
Vanity asks, "Is it popular?"
But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?"
There comes a time when one must take a position that's neither safe, nor
political, nor popular, but he must make it because his conscience tells
him that it's right. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the
body. J. J. Rousseau
--
Graham J Weeks
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Christiansquoting Daily quotes
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Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight. -- Samuel
Rutherford
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Kenneth S.
> is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to
> walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked
> by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but
> with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the
> ranks of honor. - Winston Churchill
>
> A conscience is the price of morality, and morality is the price of
> civilization. - Tom Clancy in Patriot Games.
>
> If your conscience is troubled, beware the knock on your door, Fear
> the earth as it trembles, the sky when it roars. Beware of the dweller
> within, not the man that comes to greet you.
>
> Anyone can rip aside the vail of time. You can discover the future in
> the past, or in your own imagination. Doing this you win back your
> conscience in your inner being. You know then that the universe is a
> coherent whole, and you are indivisible from it. - Maud'dib.
>
> Violation of conscience is the saddest blow to human dignity, in a
> certain sense, then inflicting physical damage. - Pope John Paul II.
>
> Who would these fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life,
> but that the dread of something after death - the undiscovered
> country, from whose bourn no traveler returns - puzzles the will, and
> makes us rather bear those ills we have then fly to others that we
> know not what of? Thus conscious does make cowards of us all. -
> Hamlet Act III Scene I - William Shakespeare
What's the experts' view on Shakespeare's use of the word "conscience"
in the Hamlet quote above? (I am ignoring the obvious typo.)
I have a recollection from English classes many years ago that the word
in context means "thinking" or "contemplation." Is it possible that my
English master, Mr. Felix-Jones, was wrong in this matter? I'm feeling
uneasy and insecure about even raising this possibility, however remote
it may be.
Robert M. Wilson
"Kenneth S." <nim...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:390384...@erols.com...
> Chuck Grimsby wrote:
[much removed]
> > know not what of? Thus conscious does make cowards of us all. -
> > Hamlet Act III Scene I - William Shakespeare
>
>
> What's the experts' view on Shakespeare's use of the word "conscience"
> in the Hamlet quote above? (I am ignoring the obvious typo.)
>
> I have a recollection from English classes many years ago that the word
> in context means "thinking" or "contemplation." Is it possible that my
> English master, Mr. Felix-Jones, was wrong in this matter? I'm feeling
> uneasy and insecure about even raising this possibility, however remote
> it may be.
Rest assured that your Mr. Felix-Jones was correct.
Hamlet is reflecting or speculating on what the after-life may hold for us.
You can read into this that we do right or wrong for fear of the
consequences after death. While that is probably going too far in
interpreting what is meant here, some people may say that is the origin of
what we usually call "conscience".
Kenneth S.
>
> On Sun, 23 Apr 2000 19:15:36 -0400, "Kenneth S." <nim...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Chuck Grimsby wrote:
> >> Who would these fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life,
> >> but that the dread of something after death - the undiscovered
> >> country, from whose bourn no traveler returns - puzzles the will, and
> >> makes us rather bear those ills we have then fly to others that we
> >> Hamlet Act III Scene I - William Shakespeare
>
> > What's the experts' view on Shakespeare's use of the word "conscience"
> >in the Hamlet quote above? (I am ignoring the obvious typo.)
>
>
> > I have a recollection from English classes many years ago that the word
> >in context means "thinking" or "contemplation." Is it possible that my
> >English master, Mr. Felix-Jones, was wrong in this matter? I'm feeling
> >uneasy and insecure about even raising this possibility, however remote
> >it may be.
>
> that's my view. What is important, with this matter and all the
> others along side it, is what =you= think. Life isn't a class where
> you have to think along the lines of your professors to get a good
> grade. Life is a matter of doing your own thinking.
>
I completely reject this thought. Life would be far too complicated if
I had to think that Mr. Felix-Jones (aka Feely Bones) ever could have
been wrong. I'm sure he's long gone, but I owe him a lot.
hran...@netonecom.net
wrote:
The OED supports Felix-Jones in its first series of definitions,
including "inward knowledge or consciousness...internal or mental
recognition or acknowledgement of something..knowledge, feeling,
sense." And for what it's worth Dr. Milton Simpson, my old English
Lit prof. also supported Feely, having dwelt on this point enough to
make me remember it for the past 56 years.
But these are not the OED's only definitions; the one that precedes
the inevitable citation from Hamlet is
II. Consciousness of right and wrong; moral sense.
The internal acknowledgement or recognition of the moral quality of
one's motives and actions; the sense of right and wrong as regards
things for which one is responsible; the faculty or principle which
pronounces upon the moral quality of one's actions or motives,
approving the right and condemning the wrong.
Opinions as to the nature, function, and authority of conscience are
widely divergent, varying from the conception of the mere exercise of
the ordinary judgement on moral questions, to that of an infallible
guide of conduct, a sort of deity within us. Popularly, the word is
often used for the whole moral nature; for its gradual individualizing
and personification in this sense...
Since Shakespeare neglected to supply his own gloss, we are left with
a choice between Felix-Jones-Simpson and J. Murray. Although I am
old enough to forget, I am too old to change, so I 'll stick with
conscience=consciousness.
--
Ben Trovato
ruc...@alumni.umich.edu
444652N853431W