This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.
Conscience | Custom | Morality |
Preserve your conscience always soft and sensitive. If but one sin force its way into that tender part of the soul and dwell thee, the road is paved for a thousand iniquities.
Conscience | Force | Sin | Soul |
The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.
Conscience | Nothing | Worth |
Nonviolence does not mean acceptance, but resistance - not waiting, but acting. It is not at all passive. It involves strikes, boycotts, non-cooperation, mass demonstrations, and sabotage, as well as appeals to the conscience of the world, even to individuals in the oppressing group who might break away from their past.
Acceptance | Conscience | Cooperation | Past | Waiting | World |
Be more careful of your conscience than of your estate. The latter can be bought and sold; the former never.
Are you not surprised to find how independent of money peace of conscience is, and how much happiness can be condensed in the humblest home? A cottage will not hold the bulky furniture and sumptuous accommodations of a mansion; but if God be there, a cottage will hold as much happiness as might stock a palace.
A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us without.
The conscience is not automatically infallible; it can easily make mistakes, and it is very difficult to distinguish its voice - the real voice of conscience - from the voice of precipitation, passion, convenience or self-will, or of moral primitiveness.
Conscience | Distinguish | Passion | Self | Will |
The greatest event in natural history was the birth of conscience in the human mind. That was the moment when man put aside his strongest natural instinct, which was self-interest.
Birth | Conscience | History | Instinct | Man | Mind | Self | Self-interest |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is “faithful in that which is least” is dependable in all the world.
Amusements | Conscience | Discipline | Good | Manners | Nothing | Trifles | Work | World |
To go against one's conscience is neither safe nor right. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.
Conscience | Right | Safe |
If conscience smite thee once, it is an admonition; if twice, it is a condemnation... What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Conscience | Heart | Self |
Life is seething before your eyes; corner stands collapse, illusions evaporate, truths come tottering like bombs, elements disintegrate demanding new components, new vices destroy the walls of muteness and rise, species amalgamate, forces are set free from their hiding places, and conscience asks its possessor to take a stand; Hold on… escape… live… die… complicate yourself… renew yourself… There is no other way than to wade into the waves of darkness and to swim to the shore of light.
Conscience | Darkness | Destroy | Life | Life | Light | Truths |
Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.
Conscience | Man |
Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his own conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
Conscience | Individual | Life | Life | Nothing |
The author who penetrates the deepest into the human soul is the one who has the strongest respect for the awakening power of conscience and the stretching power of commitment.
Awakening | Commitment | Conscience | Power | Respect | Soul | Respect |
He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.
Conscience | Hell | Man | Nothing |