A clear conscience is a good pillow.

American Proverb

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

Anonymous¹

A guilty conscience needs no accuser.

Anonymous

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved³ you from guilt², you would not be without friends.

Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855), Jane Eyre pg. 61

A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.

Doug Larson

In the courtroom of the conscience, a case is always in progress.

Dutch Proverb

Conscience is God's presence in man.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 - 1772)

There is one thing alone

that stands the brunt of life throughout its course:

a quiet conscience.

Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Hippolytus, 428 B.C.

Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.

Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.

George Sewell

Labor⁴ to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial⁵ fire called conscience.

George Washington (1732 - 1799)

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956), A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide⁶ by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Harper Lee (1926 - ), To Kill a Mockingbird

The conscience of a people is their power.

John Dryden (1631 - 1700)

All a man can betray is his conscience.

Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924)

Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.

Karl Barth (1886 - 1968)

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

Lillian Hellman (1905 - 1984), letter to Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives, May 19, 1952

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

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865 - 1946), Afterthoughts (1931) "Other People"

Freedom is a clear conscience.

Periander

Conscience is the voice of the soul.

Polish Proverb

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius (205 BC - 118 BC), History

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbour.

Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation⁷ of the opinion of others.

Sir Henry Taylor

It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letters to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803

...the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Voltaire (1694 - 1778)