Dorothy Day Quotes

Those whose conscience demands that they defy authority in some ways that involve great consequences must be willing to accept some penalty.

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow 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.

There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.

A good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.

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

There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

If you know something is morally reprehensible, then it is your moral obligation to stop it as soon as possible.

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.

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.

Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.

I do not hold with those who think it is all right to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Who's to be the judge of that?

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

And sometimes you have to go above the written law, I believe.

Reasonable ideas which find their sanction in the conscience of the righteous do not die; they are consequently realities and active forces, but they are so only to the extent that those who profess them know how to turn them to account.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

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

Maybe I'll learn how, but the only thing I can do is turn down parts that would hurt my conscience.

If the law commands me to sin, I will break it.

Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil.

Authority is mainly a moral power; therefore, it must first call upon the conscience, that is, upon the duty that each person has to contribute willingly to the common good.

Sometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law. And the key there is in terms of civil disobedience. You have to make sure that what you're risking, what you're bringing onto yourself, does not serve as a detriment to anyone else. It doesn't hurt anybody else.