Anna Quindlen Quotes

An animal takes freely anything that it wishes: it commits no sin and is not held responsible for its action because it knows no better. But as soon as the idea of 'mine' and 'thine' has been imprinted upon our consciousness, then also the responsibility comes.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

Someone once asked, 'What is the difference between me and Saddam Hussein?' The answer is, 'I have a conscience and he doesn't.'

One of my weaknesses is that I actually have a conscience.

There is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as that thing called conscience.

Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin

Without guilt / What is a man? An animal, isn't he? / A wolf forgiven at his meat, / A beetle innocent in his copulation.

Because he KNEW he was doing wrong. He felt the PAIN of his actions'-- 'But he did not amen them,' shows the Sky. 'The rest are worth as much as their pack animals,' I show, 'but worst is the one who knows better and does NOTHING.

It is not human to be without shame and without desire.

Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Fear is the mother of morality.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

A satellite has no conscience.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

Conscience is our unerring judge until we finally stifle it.

Conscience without judgment is superstition.

If you care enough to look right, you care enough to act right. And vice versa.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

People don't think of themselves as evil.

The more power that we have, the less human we are.

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.