Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [161-180] of 368 Conscience quotesConscience QuotesConscience Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues…is on the way to totalitarianism and death.~ Robert M. Hutchins The end cannot justify the means for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.~ Aldous Huxley Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.~ Hypatia of Alexandria Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.~ Robert G. Ingersoll The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf -- a philosopher or servant, -- but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.~ Robert G. Ingersoll Courage without conscience is a wild beast.~ Robert G. Ingersoll If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.~ Robert G. Ingersoll It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.~ Eugene Ionesco Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government.~ Justice Robert H. Jackson Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.~ Justice Robert H. Jackson Today, not a numerous, but an active part of the German people are beginning to realize, not that they have been led astray, not that bad times await them, not that the war may end in defeat, but that what is happening is sin and that they are personally responsible for each terrible deed that has been committed -- naturally, not in the earthly sense, but as Christians.~ Helmuth James Since National Socialism came to power, I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for a change. In that, my conscience drove me -- and in the end, that is a man's duty.~ Helmuth James An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.~ Thomas Jefferson It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.~ Thomas Jefferson Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.~ Thomas Jefferson The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. ... Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potatoe as an article of food.~ Thomas Jefferson I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.~ Thomas Jefferson Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption of Christianity could not have been purged away.~ Thomas Jefferson To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom.~ Thomas Jefferson What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?~ Jesus of Nazareth Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print