Francis Quarles Quotes

My conscience is clear.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm someone who analyses and reflects on what I do, whether it's in keeping with the ethics that I talk about in public. That's how I've been all my life.

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.

Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.

You've got to demand the truth from yourself.

I try to be a good person. I know what my downfalls are, so that's a good thing.

I can't judge the way other people behave. I can only look at myself.

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.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.

Whenever you do a thing, tho' it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you and act accordingly.

In public, as well as private life, the only way to prevent being ridiculed or censured, is to avoid all ridiculous or wicked measures, and to pursue such only as are virtuous and worthy. If any man thinks he has been ridiculed, upon any of our public theatres, let him examine his actions he will find the cause, let him alter his conduct he will find a remedy

What, pray, does it profit a man to teach others, and to be prating always about virtue, in high-sounding words, if he fails to give heed to his own instructions?

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

I have to be honest with myself, and make sure I am doing things the right way.

All I can say is that you have to live with your conscience at the end of your life, and it's the only thing that you have that belongs to yourself and nobody else.

May we be as severe with ourselves over our own subtle sins as we are with the vile sins we condemn in others

Because those, who twit others with their faults, should look at home.

To be a real man or woman, you've got to know what you believe in. You've got to understand that your actions have consequences and that they are connected to everything that you are.

The great chastisement of a knave is not to be known, but to know himself.

A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.

We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts-which someone can!

Govern thy Life and Thoughts, as if the whole World were to see the one, and read the other.