Conscientious Quotes

“Sometimes it's hard to know when you've crossed the line from conscientious to compulsive. When you're in the thick of an assignment, it's easy to believe that you must spend so much time brainstorming, researching, writing, testing, revising or what-have-you. Often, it's only after you've been working for hours on end that you realize that half the work you've been doing wasn't actually necessary and that you've just wasted a lot of time.”

— Michael Law

“AR 601-210 was necessary because conscientious objectors could not enlist as medical experiment volunteers when there was no active draft program, according to prior Army regulations. This meant that the supply of WHITECOAT volunteers was cut off at the end of the Vietnam War.”

— Colin A. Ross

“Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two tugging wire-gray wrinkles her persistently conscientious sickroom smile seemed to be whanging aimlessly against her front teeth. The sensation certainly was very unpleasant.”

— Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

“Right conscience and at the higher level conscientious deeds (spirituality) is the order of civilised and society-responsible men”

— Priyavrat Thareja

“Immortality is often ridiculous or cruel: few of us would have chosen to be Og or Ananias or Gallio. Even in mathematics, history sometimes plays strange tricks; Rolle figures in the textbooks of elementary calculus as if he had been a mathematician like Newton; Farey is immortal because he failed to understand a theorem which Haros had proved perfectly fourteen years before; the names of five worthy Norwegians still stand in Abel's Life, just for one act of conscientious imbecility, dutifully performed at the expense of their country's greatest man. But on the whole the history of science is fair, and this is particularly true in mathematics. No other subject has such clear-cut or unanimously accepted standards, and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it. Mathematical fame, if you have the cash to pay for it, is one of the soundest and steadiest of investments.”

— G.H. Hardy

“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. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“I also remember catching the eye of the few conscientious objectors in the terminal, the people opposed to the war but afraid to speak up. There was no hate in their eyes, only pity. Sadness. Knowledge that I might be necessary, but that we shouldn't be proud that I was necessary. That's how I saw myself and my company by the end of my second tour. I didn't hate what we did so much as hate the need for it all. No one should applaud this. We should bow our heads not in thanks but in sadness.”

— Hugh Howey

“Time is a conscientious Debunker.”

— Kristian Goldmund Aumann

“Hesitation, anxiety, the struggle between belief and disbelief-all that is sometimes such a torment for a conscientious man ... that it's better to hang oneself.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Conscientious stupidity is a religion for most. Many will deny it, but it's those same people that find it easier to ignore the truth. This religion can only be followed by their humble ignorance. It's safe to assume, that this religion is an illusion of knowledge.”

— Lionel Suggs

“Nothing is harder yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.
Spoken by Albertus Secundus in Das Glasperlenspiel”

— Hermann Hesse

“There were billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy, and every one was a potential traitor and foe.”

— Joseph Heller

“An intelligent and conscientious opposition is a part of loyalty to country.”

— Bainbridge Colby

“The heart of the difference between cheap-grace doctrines of guilt-free existence and the Christian gospel is this: Modern chauvinism desperately avoids the message of guilt by treating it as a regrettable symptom. Christianity listens to the message of guilt by conscientious self-examination. Hedonism winks at sin. Christianity earnestly confesses sin. Secularism assumes it can extricate itself from gross misdeeds. Christianity looks to grace for divine forgiveness. Modern consciousness is its own fumbling attorney before the bar of conscience. Christianity rejoices that God himself has become our attorney. Modernity sees no reason to atone for or make reparation for wrongs. Christianity knows that unatoned sin brings on misery of conscience. Modern naturalism sees no meed for God. Christianity celebrates God's willingness to suffer four our sins and redeem us from guilt.”

— Thomas C. Oden

“A noble and active mind blunts itself against nothing so quickly as the sharp and bitter irritant of knowledge. And certain it is that the youth's constancy of purpose, no matter how painfully conscientious, was shallow beside the mature resolution of the master of his craft, who made a right-about-face, turned his back on the realm of knowledge, and passed it by with averted face, lest it lame his will or power of action, paralyse his feelings or his passions, deprive any of these of their conviction or utility.”

— Thomas Mann

“For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.”

— Howard Nemerov

“To me, there is no more conscientious umpire in the Major Leagues than Jim Joyce. He gives you a hellacious effort every time.”

— Tony La Russa

“I think I'm very conscientious of how precious life is and how quickly life can be taken away from you, especially at times when it can be least expected.”

— Jeff Garcia

“I believe in conscientious capitalism; that's a kind of driving force with me.”

— Zachary Levi

“They were conscientious, you couldn't deny it, and they were also flabby, heartless sons-of-bitches. In other words, they were well chosen, as mindlessly enthusiastic as any employer could dream of. Sons that would have delighted my mother, worshiping their bosses, if only she could have had one all to herself, a son she could have been proud of in the eyes of the world, a real legitimate son.”

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

“If you see yourself as a relatively good, moral, conscientious, church-going person, or one who's constantly being affirmed by others, you might wonder how you can possibly think of yourself as a lost sinner. But it should be obvious. When we step into the light of Christ's perfect righteousness, our utter depravity is exposed. Our righteousness is shown to be nothing more than filthy rags. Our supposed goodness is nowhere to be found. If you don't readily understand and humbly admit this, then genuinely ask God to open the eyes of your heart and expose your true depravity in light of his holiness.”

— Anonymous.

“Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation, for, with a little conscientious research, we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.”

— H.P. Lovecraft

“I believe that most police are conscientious and want only to provide safety for us.”

— Rand Paul

“Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“He was conscientious, he did his duty as he understood it; but he was no seaman.”

— Patrick O'Brian

“To prohibit what they think pernicious, is not claiming exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction.”

— John Stuart Mill

“Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time.
Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Beauty in art is truth bathed in an impression received from nature. I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me.”

— Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

“To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.”

— Sarah Ellis

“I am constantly torn between the attitude of the conscientious journalist who is a recorder and interpreter of the facts and of the creative artist who often is necessarily at poetic odds with the literal facts.”

— W. Eugene Smith

“A great deal of the joy of life consists in doing perfectly, or at least to the best of one's ability, everything which one attempts to do. There is a sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in all its parts-which the superficial man, who leaves his work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns work into art. The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic.”

— William Matthews

“This medium that we're working in - film and television - for an audience, it's like you live through these characters because it's things you can't do in real life. Places you're not prepared to go in real life as a decent human being, anyway. Because if you're a conscientious person, so you live kind of vicariously through these people.”

— Christian Cooke

“Parents must bring light and truth into their homes by one family prayer, one scripture study session, one family home evening, one book read aloud, one song, and one family meal at a time. They know that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily parenting is among the most powerful and sustaining forces for good in the world. The health of any society, the happiness of its people, their prosperity, and their peace all find common roots in the teaching of children in the home.”

— L. Tom Perry

“The conscientious objector is a revoultionary. On deciding to disobey the law he sacrifices his personal interests to the most important cause of working for the betterment of society.”

— Albert Einstein

“Every thoughtful, well-meaning and conscientious human being
should assume in time of peace,
the solemn and unconditional obligation
not to participate in any war, for any reason
or to lend support of any kind, whether direct or indirect.”

— Albert Einstein

“We should clearly understand that only the voluntary and conscientious acceptance by a people of its guilt can ensure the healing of a nation. Unremitting reproaches from outside are counterproductive.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government.”

— James A. Garfield

“No one is born with good character; it's not a hereditary trait. And it isn't determined by a single noble act. Character is established by conscientious adherence to moral values, not by lofty rhetoric or good intentions.”

— Michael Josephson

“One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.”

— Anthony Trollope

“Every conscientious husband and wife should measure their marriage by the unchanging standard of the principles found in God's Word.”

— Myles Munroe

“Conscientious and careful physicians allocate causes of disease to natural laws, while the ablest scientists go back to medicine for their first principles.”

— Aristotle

“Despite occasional policy differences between us, I have long respected Jim Jeffords' integrity, and his conscientious service to his constituents and to the nation.”

— John McCain

“For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass.”

— Tom Robbins

“I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.”

— C.S. Lewis

“I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

“I was very much a tomboy for a long time, but as I start to get older, I realize I better actually try to preserve what I have and I better be a little conscientious about my regime.”

— Gwyneth Paltrow

“I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. Such men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their own.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

“IF WE AND OUR POSTERITY SHALL BE TRUE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, IF WE AND THEY SHALL LIVE ALWAYS IN THE FEAR OF GOD AND SHALL RESPECT HIS COMMANDMENTS, IF WE AND THEY SHALL MAINTAIN JUST MORAL SENTIMENTS AND SUCH CONSCIENTIOUS CONVICTIONS OF DUTY AS SHALL CONTROL THE HEART AND LIFE, WE MAY HAVE THE HIGHEST HOPES OF THE FUTURE FORTUNES OF OUR COUNTRY. OUR COUNTRY WILL GO ON PROSPERING.”

— Daniel Webster