Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

You might want to think twice before you try to use a man's conscience against him. It may turn out he doesn't have one.

People don't do right because of the fear of God or love of him. You do right because the world doesn't make sense if you don't.

I'm sure there's a right way and there's a wrong way. The bottom line is you have to do what you think is right.

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

I always felt like I was doing the right thing.

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided.

A fool is a person who knows the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to do wrong.

Without integrity and conscience we lose our freedom.

A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.

If I didn't care about doing right and didn't feel uncomfortable doing wrong, I should get on capitally.

No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one's best, to keep the brain and conscience clear, never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved, then do one's duty.

Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellowmen, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.

You do what you want and know is right. That is the only law.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.

While I was thus carrying out my obligations, I never did anything with which my conscience would have to find fault

If you had better sense you’d have learned by now that nothing thrives so well as wickedness

I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.

Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition. There are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.

Men are guided less by conscience than by glory; and yet the shortest way to glory is to be guided by conscience.

The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.