John Petit-Senn Quotes

You consult your honor; I my interest.

A man's conscience, like a warning line on the highway, tells him what he shouldn't do - but it does not keep him from doing it.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim - not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good.

Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

I believe that people generally want to be what we call good. They want to cooperate with people. They don't want to steal; they don't want to cheat. But everybody has a price. Everybody has an incentive.

Many people weigh the guilt, they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.

Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. It is strange that these voices often contradict each other?

Always listen to the voice of your conscience. If your conscience conflicts with your faith, question everything.

Oh, Conscience! Conscience! man's most faithful friend, Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend; But if he will thy friendly checks forego, Thou art, oh! woe for me, his deadliest foe!

But what are pity, conscience, or fear To the brazen pair, compared With the living sorcery Of their hot embraces?

Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

Any time the character is in a moral quandary is interesting. That's been true from the Greeks on down.

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

You know, I'm cursed with morals. I was raised a certain way. I wish I wasn't. I wish I was raised by wolves.

I think my heart is quite selfish. If I followed my heart, I would not be a good person. But I have moral principles. I have to sit down and reflect.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

I believe there's things all around us that make you do good things and some that make you do bad things.

I did what my conscience told me to do, and you can't fail if you do that.

In Survivor and Finder's Fee, it is about what you would do if you could get away with it. Survivor is about your own integrity and where you draw your own ethical and moral lines. There are no rules.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.