Carl von Ossietzky Quotes

I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.

There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

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.

Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.

I can't judge the way other people behave. I can only look at myself.

I find it significant that, even though contemporary philosophy tends towards forms of determinism, in the wider culture people are deeply into naming, shaming and blaming each other. So we haven't lost that sense of conscience.

Evil is important for us to look at, in my opinion, only insofar as it makes us look at our own actions and make us wonder, 'Am I participating in some kind of human evil that I really should stop doing?'

Think before you act and act on what you believe.

Personal responsibility is not only recognizing the errors of our ways. Personal responsibility lies in our willingness and ability to correct those errors individually and collectively.

My conscience is clear.

If the history of the Day of Atonement has anything to say to us now it is: never relieve individuals of moral responsibility. The more we have, the more we grow.

Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

The issue is not whether or not we can stand with the President. It is whether, at the end of the day, we can stand with ourselves.

At the end of the day, you have to do what you think is right and be human.

I don't think there's a morally perfect way to do anything in life, but I'm not a filmmaker who tries to hide my mess.

All I can say is that you have to live with your conscience at the end of your life, and it's the only thing that you have that belongs to yourself and nobody else.

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.

Because those, who twit others with their faults, should look at home.

To be a real man or woman, you've got to know what you believe in. You've got to understand that your actions have consequences and that they are connected to everything that you are.

Whatever you condemn, you have done yourself.

It's your own conscience That is gonna remind you That it's your heart and nobody else's That is gonna judge.

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.