conscience Hear it!

conscience Definition

con·science (kän′s̸həns)

noun

  1. a knowledge or sense of right and wrong, with an urge to do right; moral judgment that opposes the violation of a previously recognized ethical principle and that leads to feelings of guilt if one violates such a principle
  2. Obsolete
    1. consciousness
    2. inner thoughts or feelings

Etymology: OFr < L conscientia, consciousness, moral sense < prp. of conscire < com-, with + scire, to know (see science): replacing ME inwit, knowledge within

conscience Related Forms
con′·science·less adjective
conscience Idioms

in (all) conscience

in fairness; on any reasonable ground

on one's conscience

causing one to feel guilty

conscience Synonyms

conscience

n.

moral sense, inner voice, the still small voice*; see duty 1, morals, shame 2.

have on one's conscience

be culpable, be blamable for, be responsible for; see guilty 2.

in (all) conscience

in all fairness, rightly, fairly, properly; see justly 1, surely.

conscience Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • sear: Not a seared conscience that's lost all sensitivity.
  • awaken: It is not to be supposed that Satan would convince men of sin or awaken the conscience.
  • stir: Open inspection of the papers amply confirmed Judge Babington's conclusions and stirred the public conscience.
  • violate: You can rationalize, trying to justify yourself in your own mind, but a violated conscience will not be easily convinced.
  • satisfy: I think most of us go to prayer only from this principle to satisfy a natural conscience.

Adjective modifier

  • guilty: Does a guilty conscience stop you enjoying your food?
  • philosophic: In this connection, the agenda of the Congress raised that scores must be settled with the old philosophic conscience.
  • collective: The legitimacy of the World Tribunal on Iraq is located in the collective conscience of humanity.
  • uneasy: If attempts at suicide are any indication of guilt, this man must have a very uneasy conscience.
  • enlightened: The word was not defined but it essentially meant scientific and moral advance on the Western model, based on the enlightened conscience.
  • clear: A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Modifies a noun

  • sake: Wherefore [ ye ] must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
  • clause: The idea of a conscience clause needs to be very carefully considered.
  • void: Intellectual guidance in a specific issue depends upon a conscience void of offense toward God in general.

Noun used with modifier

  • tender: There is a twofold shame: the shame of a guilty conscience, and the shame of a tender conscience.

Possessives

  • sake: Rulers are empowered to punish and do it for conscience's sake.

Preposition: of

  • mankind: The conscience of mankind has been witness that we cannot celebrate war itself, however proudly we may remember the dead.
  • humanity: The legitimacy of the World Tribunal on Iraq is located in the collective conscience of humanity.
  • sin: Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
conscience Quotes

The command 'Thou shalt not kill'must be binding on the conscience of humanity if the terrible tragedy and destiny of Cain is not to be repeated.

—PopeJohn Paul II originally Karol Jozef Wojtyla

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

—Milton,John

   Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.If I had a yaller dog that didn't know nomorethana person's conscience does Iwould poison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

  But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Joy shivers in the corner where she knits And Conscience always has the rocking-chair, Cheerful as when she tortured into fits The first cat that was ever killed by Care.

—Robinson, Edwin Arlington

My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defence; I neither seek by bribes to please, Nor by deceit to breed offence. Thus do I live; thus will I die. Would all did so well as I!

—Dyer, Sir Edward

Ay, a plague on't, My conscience fools my wit!

—Jonson, Ben

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

—Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

—Goldsmith, Oliver

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

—King, Martin LutherJr

Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

—Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)

Now conscience wakes despair That slumbered, wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

—Milton,John

The official world, the corridors of power, the dilemmas of conscience and egotismöshe disliked them all.

—Snow, C(harles) P(ercy), 1st Baron

He that purchases a manor will think to have an exact survey of the land, but who thinks of taking so exact a survey of his conscience, how that money was got that purchased that manor? We call that a man's means, which he hath; but that is truly his means, what way he came by it.

—Donne,John

Yet much remains To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renowned then war, new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains: Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw.

—Milton,John

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

—Luther, Martin

A good eater must be a good man; fora good eater must have a good digestion, and a good digestion depends upon a good conscience.

—Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

There are only two things worth aiming for: good music and a clean conscience.

—Hindemith, Paul

All Reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.

—Smith, Logan Pearsall

In myconscience I believethe baggage lovesme, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

—Congreve,William

I've got just as much conscience as any man in business can afford to keep,öjust a little, you know, to swear by, as 't were.

—Stowe, Harriet (Elizabeth) ne¤  e Beecher

He was killed by theusual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the womanhe knew; by the womanhe did not know; by the man who granted his inmost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone.

—Davies, Robertson

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

—Smith, Logan Pearsall

'God knows how you Protestants can be expected to have any sense of direction,'she said.'It's different with us,I haven't been to mass for years, I've got every mortal sinonmyconscience, but I know when I'mdoing wrong. I'm still a Catholic, it's there, nothing can take it away from me.' 'Of course, duckie,'said Jeremy†'once a Catholic always a Catholic.'

—Wilson, SirAngus FrankJohnstone

Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, or should or could be the global gendarme.

—McNamara, Robert Strange

Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.

—Hawthorne, Nathaniel

There were many ways of not burdening one's conscience, of shunning responsibility, looking away, keeping silent.When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust became known at the end of the war, all too many of us claimed that they had not known anything about it, orevensuspectedanything† Whoeverrefuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection† Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.

—Weizsa«  cker, Richard Freiherr, Baron von

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there.You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

—James, Henry

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

—Lee, (Nelle) Harper

Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'a"  me. Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.

—Rabelais, Fran c° ois

These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion conscience.

—Milton,John

We draw the sword with a clean conscience and with clean hands.

—Wilhelm II, Kaiser

Gloria boni hominis, testimonium bon× conscienti×. The testimony of a good conscience is the good man's glory.

—Kempis, StThomas a'

To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own words as if his God's.

—Tennyson

When I landed in the republic of conscience it was so noiseless when the engines stopped I could hear a curlew high above the runway.

—Heaney, SeamusJustin

A story with a moral appended is like the bite of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.

—O Henry pseudonym of  William Sydney Porter

Conscience de¤  chire¤  e entra|"ne vie de¤  cousue. A torn conscience brings about a disconnected life.

—Hugo,Victor Marie

And I will place within them as a guide My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting, safe arrive.

—Milton,John

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago cameto the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

—Hellman, Lillian Florence

Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.

—Vaughan, Henry