Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. ... by H. L. Mencken

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. ...
by H. L. Mencken

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken

The objection to Puritans is not that
they try to make us think as they do,
but that they try to make us do as they think.
- H. L. Mencken

Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken

Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken

Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken

Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.
- H. L. Mencken

There is a higher court than courts of justice
and that is the court of conscience.
It supersedes all other courts.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The human voice can never reach the distance
that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

In matters of conscience,
the law of the majority has no place.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Smiling away your troubles requires
a clear conscience that harbors no insincerity.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

The ultimate test of a man's conscience
may be his willingness to sacrifice something today
for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

There are times, sir, when men of good conscience
cannot blindly follow orders.
- Captain Picard, STAR TREK: The Next Generation

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.
- B. C. Forbes

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink,
but they whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves their conduct,
will pursue their principles unto death.
- Thomas Paine

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

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that
it is better for hard words to be on paper
than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
- Anne Frank

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience:
this is the ideal life.
- Mark Twain

The highest result of education is tolerance.
Long ago men fought and died for their faith;
but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, -
the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren
and their rights of conscience.
- Helen Keller

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life
in which chance has placed us,
but is always the result of a good conscience,
good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
- Thomas Jefferson

Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience,
independent will and creative imagination.
These give us the ultimate human freedom...
The power to choose, to respond, to change.
- Stephen Covey

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves.
But deep down below the surface of the average conscience
a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
- Carl Jung

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself,
to resist invasions of it in the case of others:
or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
- Thomas Jefferson

One who breaks an unjust law
that conscience tells him is unjust,
and who willingly accepts
the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience
of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

An individual who breaks a law that
conscience tells him is unjust,
and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience
of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I submit that an individual who breaks the law
that conscience tells him is unjust
and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail
to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; ...
Forgive them anyway.
- Kent Keith
(often attributed to Mother Teresa, who kept a copy
on the wall of her orphanage)

Mother is the name for God
in the lips and hearts of little children.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

So your father, or your mother,
never thought you were good enough - SO WHAT?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Give the world the best you have
and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway.
- Mother Teresa

God doesn't require us to succeed;
He only requires that you try.
- Mother Teresa

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God
who is sending a love letter to the world.
- Mother Teresa

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis,
but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
- Mother Teresa

The miracle is not that we do this work,
but that we are happy to do it.
- Mother Teresa

We ourselves feel that what we are doing
is just a drop in the ocean.
But the ocean would be less
because of that missing drop.
- Mother Teresa

Kind words can be short and easy to speak,
but their echoes are truly endless.
- Mother Teresa

Let us touch the dying, the poor,
the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received
and let us not be ashamed
or slow to do the humble work.
- Mother Teresa

Do not think that love,
in order to be genuine,
has to be extraordinary.
What we need is to love without getting tired.
- Mother Teresa

Every time you smile at someone,
it is an action of love,
a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- Mother Teresa

I have found the paradox,
that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
- Mother Teresa

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do...
but how much love we put in that action.
- Mother Teresa

Thank you for visiting these Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. ... by H. L. Mencken.

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. ...by H. L. Mencken

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. ...
by H. L. Mencken