This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
God always interior to man, and unyielding, He, the true conscience to the false; a prohibition to the spark to extinguish itself; an order to the ray to remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the real absolute when it is confronted with the fictitious absolute; humanity imperishable; that splendid phenomenon, the most beautiful perhaps of our interior wonders.
Absolute | Conscience | God | Humanity | Man | Order | Soul |
The conscience is… a brake, not a guide; a fence, not a way. It raises its voice after a wrong deed has been committed, but often fails to give us direction in advance of our actions.
Conscience | Wrong |
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Discipline | Government | People | Government |
Any attempt to replace the personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.
Conscience | Individual |
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Conscience | Cowardice | Position | Question | Right | Safe | Time |
One day we shall win freedom, but not for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
Conscience | Day | Freedom | Heart | Will |
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its justice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
Conscience | Individual | Justice | Law | Reality | Respect | Respect |
It is in seeing the actions of vicious and wicked people and comparing them with what my conscience tells me regarding such actions that I have learnt what I ought to avoid and what I ought to do. The wise and prudent man will draw a useful lesson even from poison itself.
When one has too many answers, and when on ejoins a chorus of others chanting the same slogans, there is, it seems to me, a danger that one is trying to evade the loneliness of a conscience that realizes itself to be in an inescapably evil situation. We are under judgment.
Conscience | Danger | Evil | Judgment | Loneliness | Danger |
Moral courage, the courage of one’s convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle – the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other.
Age | Conscience | Conspiracy | Convictions | Courage | Struggle | World |
The peace of God is peace within ourselves. The unrest of human life comes largely from our being torn asunder by contending impulses. Conscience pulls this way, passion that. Desire says, “Do this”; reason, judgment, prudence say “It is your peril if you do!” One desire fights against another. And so the man is rent asunder. There must be the harmonizing of all the being if there is to be real rest of spirit.
Conscience | Desire | God | Judgment | Life | Life | Man | Passion | Peace | Peril | Prudence | Prudence | Reason | Rest | Spirit | God |
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Business | Conduct | Conscience | Death | Distress | Esteem | Heart | Little | Love | Man | Principles | Reflection | Smile | Strength | Will | Business |
It is reasonable to concur where Conscience does not forbid compliance; for Conformity is at least a Civic Virtue... it is a Weakness in Religion and Government where it is carried to Things of an Indifferent Nature, since... Liberty is always the Price of it.
Compliance | Conformity | Conscience | Government | Liberty | Nature | Price | Religion | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Government |
The decrees of conscience are not judgments but feelings.
Conscience | Feelings |
Oscar Romero, formally Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.
To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.
Conscience | Enough | Judgment | Will |