Walter Scott Quotes

On that road of the informer, it is always night. I cannot ever inform against anyone without feeling something die within me. I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary.

Don't sell out your virtue and your value for something you think you want. Judas got the money, but he threw it all away and hung himself because he was so unhappy with himself.

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

A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.

Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.

Being conscious of having done a wicked action leaves stings of remorse behind it, which, like an ulcer in the flesh, makes the mind smart with perpetual wounds; for reason, which chases away all other pains, creates repentance, shames the soul with confusion, and punishes it with torment.

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.

A little water clears us of this deed.

As the stag which the huntsman has hit flies through bush and brake, over stock and stone, thereby exhausting his strength but not expelling the deadly bullet from his body; so does experience show that they who have troubled consciences run from place to place, but carry with them wherever they go their dangerous wounds.

Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.

I would bear any affliction rather than be burdened with a guilty conscience.

Sin and shame ever go together; he that would be freed from the last must be sure to shun the company of the first.

Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.

The greatest incitement to guilt is the hope of sinning with impunity.

No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.

Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel-dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.

If anyone has a conscience it's generally a guilty one.

While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind.

To have guilt you've got to earn guilt, but sometimes when you earn it, you don't feel the guilt you ought to have. And that's what The Firebombing is about.

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.

What is guilt? Guilt is the pledge drive constantly hammering in our heads that keeps us from fully enjoying the show. Guilt is the reason they put the articles in Playboy.

All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

I really believe guilt finds its way out of a person.

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.