Huckleberry Finn handout: Conscience and the moral sense
  What others have said

Thomas Paine: “The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer would often escape unpunished, did not injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.” (Common Sense, p. 150.)

Abraham Lincoln: “Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”

Orson F. Whitney: “A man sins when he violates his conscience, going contrary to light and knowledge—not the light and knowledge that has come to his neighbour, but that which has come to himself. He sins when he does the opposite of what he knows to be right. Up to that point he only blunders. One may suffer painful consequences for inly blundering but he cannot commit sin unless he knows better than to do the thing in which sin consists. One must have a conscience before he can violate it. The Psalmist (Ps 4,6) explained that they light of conscience by which we discern what is good and what is evil is nothing but the impression of divine light on us The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.”

Lord Byron stated: “Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.”

Winston Churchill held that: “The only wise and safe course is to act from day to day in accordance with what ones conscience seems to decree.”

Albert Einsteins motto was: “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

Emerson’s rule was: “Let me consider this as a resolution by which I pledge myself to act in all variety of circumstances and to which I must recur often in times of carelessness and temptation—to measure my conduct by the rule of conscience.”

Benjamin Franklin’s advice was: Keep conscience clear then never fear.”

Martin Luther King, Jr taught: “Vanity asks the question—is it popular? Conscience asks the question—is it right?”

Abraham Lincoln believed in being true to his conscience: “No client ever had enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong and oppression.”

Martin Luther boldly declared to the religious tribunal: “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do no other, so help me God, Amen."(speech before Diet of Worms Germany April 18, 1521)

Publius Syrus advised: “Consult your conscience, rather than popular opinion.”

Bertrand Russell stated: “To obey God means, in practice, to obey one’s conscience.”

Seneca the younger stated: “Nothing shall I ever do for the sake of [public] opinion, everything for the sake of my conscience.”

George Bernard Shaw observed: “A world without conscience; that is the horror of our condition.”

Stanislaw observed: “Conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as judge.”

Emmanuel Swedenborg succinctly stated: “Conscience is Gods presence in man.”

George Washington: “Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein admitted: “Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.”

“I believe… that [justice] is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society.” --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1816. ME 15:76