#conscience

Bonhoeffer examined and dismissed a number of approaches to dealing with evil. "Reasonable people," he said, think that "with a little reason, they can pull back together a structure that has come apart at the joints." Then there are the ethical "fanatics" who "believe that they can face the power of evil with the purity of their will and their principles." Men of"conscience" become overwhelmed because the "countless respectable and seductive disguises and masks in which evil approaches them make their conscience anxious and unsure until they finally content themselves with an assuaged conscience instead of a good conscience." They must "deceive their own conscience in order not to despair." Finally there are some who retreat to a "private virtuousness. Such people neither steal, nor murder,nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. but... they must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep their private blamelessness clean from the stains of responsible action in the world. In all that they do, what they fail to do will not let them rest. ↗

— Eric Metaxas

#dealing-with-evil #ethics #injustice #moral-responsibility #self-justification

Yet, analytical truth is not as mysterious, or as secret, so as to not allow us to see that people with a talent for directing consciences see truth rise spontaneously. ↗

— Jacques Lacan

#analytical #consciences #directing #mysterious #people

Conscience- protects the privileges of intimacy, makes ,friends keep their promises, prevents the angered spouse from striking back. ↗

— Martha Stout

#anger

I think - I think you have a conscience growing up in a loving family with a nurturing community. And I think what happens is, and that's part of the problem of being in the closet which is a very sick place. I mean it's self loathing. It's self denial. And you keep that separate. ↗

— James McGreevey

#closet #community #conscience #denial #family

I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity. ↗

— Jonathan Miller

#curiosity #driven #i #into #medicine

Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society. ↗

— Michael Novak

#atheists #civil #civil society #conscience #consciences

We cannot appeal to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep. ↗

— Carl von Ossietzky

#asleep #cannot #conscience #our #own

Conscience: self-esteem with a halo. ↗

— Irving Layton

#halo #self-esteem

If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless. ↗

— Antonin Scalia

#conscience #constitution #draw #experience #good

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. ↗

— B. C. Forbes

#cost #failure #his #man #millions