Conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgment may derive from values or norms (principles and rules). In psychological terms conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a human commits actions that go against his/her moral values and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to such norms. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based in reason has occasioned debate through much of the history of Western philosophy.

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Famous quotes containing the word conscience:

    peace hath her victories
    No less renowned than 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.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    But, though light-headed man forget,
    Remembering Matter pays her debt:
    Still, through her motes and masses, draw
    Electric thrills and ties of Law,
    Which bind the strengths of Nature wild
    To the conscience of the child.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)