Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

The New England conscience does not stop you from doing what you shouldn't-it just stops you from enjoying it.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

A good man with a good conscience doesn't walk so fast.

I've never been a bad person and always had quite good morals. There's always been a side of me that's been quite proper, but it's got distracted here and there. Now I'm the person I should be.

I really wanted to be nasty and mean and bad. It's so much easier than being the good girl.

You cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible!

Living with a conscience is like driving with the brakes on.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

The truth doesn't lie. It's up in your face. It's in your conscience. It challenges your very being with the intention of cleaning you of sin and its influence.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

I did not clash with the National Party. I clashed with my conscience. And in the end, conscience wins.

You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.

I think guilt can be good to a small degree, keep you on the right path.

I'm no saint but I do believe in what is right.

Peace of mind just can't be bought. Trust me: Even if your conscience doesn't stop you from playing dirty to get what you want, once you get it, it will keep you from enjoying it. As my mother used to say, "A good conscience is God's eye." Which is why I always prefer a loss to an underhanded gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

Oh but I'd pay anything to keep my conscience clean.I'm keeping my eyes on the the exit sign. Steady now.

Shame is the turnkey that keeps our evil desires in jail.

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

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

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.

I have to do what's right.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.