Elizabeth Missing Sewell Quotes

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

All good men and women should be on their guard to avoid guilt, and even the suspicion of it.

It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.

I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do.

Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.

His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.

Whoever despiseth shame, despiseth sin.

Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.

When one does another person an injustice, in some mysterious way it does one good to discover (or to persuade oneself) that the injured party has also behaved badly or unfairly in some little matter or other; it is always a relief to the conscience if one can apportion some measure of guilt to the person one has betrayed.

Everyone performs bad actions... A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions.

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.

Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

We cheated, you and me, and someone noticed. I noticed you; someone else noticed me. It hurts us. That's not so bad. So many people cheat. Everywhere on every level. Everyone's cheated. I'm just saying that you don't need to see yourself as a cheater. Because that's not who you are. You're someone who cheated. There's a difference, and you should try to get that difference, or that's who you'll grow up to be.

You know, as I've grown older, my ideas about sin have changed. I used to believe that sins were things you did, but I don't think that now. I think sins are what you ignore.

Man is responsible not only for every deed, but also for every idle word and thought.

There are some things we should feel guilty about, but the guilt feelings should attach to the deed, not to the doer.

E'er you remark another's sin, bid your own conscience look within.

Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?

In my heart, I know I haven't been the best person, the best quarterback for the Steelers, I'm not talking just on the field, I'm talking off the field.