Pierre Trudeau Quotes

If the Soviet Government orders me to act against my conscience, I do not obey …. Conscience is above the law. No law which is against the conscience can bind.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

You can't disobey the rules every time you disapprove. However, when you're considering something that constitutes an extreme abridgement of your rights, conscience is the court of last resort.

Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes.

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

I will live and die by this testimony: that I loved a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty; and that I preserved my own.

The only guide to man is his conscience.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.

Forget the laws. If the laws don't make sense, if they run contrary to your conscience, you have to disobey them.

I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run- in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

Even when there is no law, there is conscience.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

You can't legislate morality.

I don't want to do anything that violates my own personal code of ethics and morals.

Morality is the weakness of the brain.

I'm just doing what my conscience asks me to do.

Many a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the conception, 'morality.' Morality is the 'idea' of morals, their intellectual power, their power over the conscience; on the other hand, morals are too material to rule the mind, and do not fetter an 'intellectual' man, a so-called independent, a 'freethinker.'

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

I'll never go against my morals.

The Natural Law which God has written into our beings cannot be entirely eradicated, but it can be gravely deformed, leading to distortion of consciousness and conscience, and hence our actions.