No Guilty Conscience Quotes & Sayings

Was ever any wicked man free from the stings of a guilty conscience? — John Tillotson

Consider guilt like a street sign that warns of rough roads ahead if you don't make a u-turn. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We can't make up for lost time, but we can make room to share space. — T.F. Hodge

A man in loss is not a man to trust. — Auliq Ice

But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious sentiment?
There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will and law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself: why?
"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our race is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression humanity has fallen; error and ignorance have become its sustenance. Read history, you will find universal proof of this necessity for evil in the permanent misery of nations. Man suffers and always will suffer; his disease is hereditary and constitutional. Use palliatives, employ emollients; there is no remedy. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

If you want to know the real reasons behind that attitude, think of the thought behind that attitude — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

...The same folks who believe this fantasy also believe that the sole motivation for modern man's practice of science is to disprove their beliefs. How despicably arrogant of them to circumvent their burden of proof! It is plainly there for all to see that science wishes to discover and prove the answers to the very same questions that religion claims to already have answers for, whether or not they disprove former assumptions by our ancestors. The religionists should be happy that that their claims might have the chance to be proven wrong, but instead they would rather fear them disproven. I don't know about you, but I smell a guilty conscience. If they were one-hundred percent certain that their claims were of truth, they wouldn't need "faith" in them, nor would they have to dread possible invalidation. — John M. Penkal

A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. — Carolyn Wells

Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount. — Tom Hodgkinson

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness. — Seneca The Younger

I climbed into Misery and called Uncle Bob. "We hooking up?"
"Why does everything out of your mouth make me sound incestuous?"
"Um, I wasn't aware that it did. Perhaps you have a guilty conscience."
"Charley."
"Is there something you need to get off your chest? Besides that skank I saw you with the other day? — Darynda Jones

God's answer to your guilty conscience is the death of his Son. Your answer to a guilty conscience is usually something you do, like confessing harder, praying more, reading your Bible, paying more than your tithe in the offering and so on. These actions are what the writer to the Hebrews calls "dead works," the very things your conscience needs to be cleansed from and the very things that eventually get you wrapped up in the black shadow of your own guilt. — John White

Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation. — Eric Hoffer

It is now 55 years since my last book report, which is a long time to live with a guilty conscience. So here it is: In the spring of 1956 I wrote a highly favorable review of the Bible without reading a word of it, and it was the last A I ever got in English. Why it has taken so long to come clean I'm not sure, except I have always been extremely sensitive about my academic reputation. — Pete Dexter

A guilty conscience is not worth extra food. — Ruta Sepetys

I understand individuals and their personal motivations, but when those same individuals become a part of something bigger, some amorphous corporate ball of greed, I can't anticipate the logical next move, because it has long ago stopped being human. Your average human being has a conscience and the world is structured with checks and balances to shed light on that individual should he or she become something ugly and cruel. But a company can hide its corruption; the individuals responsible can sit innocently and united behind their desks for years before they are discovered. They are as guilty as the guy robbing the liquor store in the ski mask, only they're free to show their faces. I had no idea whether I should be looking for the worker bee or the nest, or both, and my nearsightedness cost my boss his job. — Lisa Lutz

Those who are quieting a guilty conscience with the thought that they can change a course of evil when they choose, that they can trifle with the invitations of mercy, and yet be again and again impressed, take this course at their peril. They think that after casting all their influence on the side of the great rebel, in a moment of utmost extremity, when danger compasses them about, they will change leaders. But this is not so easily done. The experience, the education, the discipline of a life of sinful indulgence, has so thoroughly molded the character that they cannot then receive the image of Jesus. Had no light shone upon their pathway, the case would have been different. Mercy might interpose, and give them an opportunity to accept her overtures; but after light has been long rejected and despised, it will be finally withdrawn. — Ellen G. White

Fear of dying must surely mean fear of how one dies. If one can be assured of a painless death, how can one fear it, unless one is a religious fanatic with a very guilty conscience? — Dimitris Mita

Sometimes all you need is one person with a guilty conscience to come forward and do the right thing. Often, the miracle you need resides inside of yourself, when you humbly ask for forgiveness. — Shannon L. Alder

For the longest time, marriage has had a guilty conscience about itself. Should we believe it?
Yes, we should believe it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The promises made by a guilty conscience acknowledge and settle no debts... — Tove Jansson

It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who ... drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime. — Susan B. Anthony

Guilty conscience is the number one liar and the producer of suspicion. — ABC

There is nothing to fear on earth but sin. Prison and death are nothing compared to a guilty conscience. If we are destined to suffer unjustly, if all the world forsake us, God will not. Whatever happens, then, let us put our trust in God. — Christoph Von Schmid

And then I laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it's all I an do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?
It's like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this IS home. — Sara Gruen

My conscience is clear, because I know that in my conscience and in front of God I am guilty of nothing. I hope human justice will see at the same way. — Giulio Andreotti

Ha, no, that it's always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn't care less. It's the ones fighting for good who are consumed by remorse. — David Lagercrantz

Guilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves. — Iris Murdoch

Those who have experienced the most, have suffered so much that they have ceased to hate. Hate is more for those with a slightly guilty conscience, and who by chewing on old hate in times of peace wish to demonstrate how great they were during the war. — Thor Heyerdahl

It is enough for a poet to be the guilty conscience of his age. — Saint-John Perse

There is just as much evil in all of us as there is good. We're all continuously guilty, even if we're not doing it intentionally to be evil. Here we are sitting in luxury hotels, living it up on the the backs of others in the third world. We all have a guilty conscience, but we do very little about it. — Michael Haneke

it's always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn't care less. — David Lagercrantz

The law of Dante's Hell is the law of symbolic retribution. As they sinned so are they punished. They took no sides, therefore they are given no place. As they pursued the ever-shifting illusion of their own advantage, changing their courses with every changing wind, so they pursue eternally an elusive, ever-shifting banner. As their sin was a darkness, so they move in darkness. As their own guilty conscience pursued them, so they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets. And as their actions were a moral filth, so they run eternally through the filth of worms and maggots which they themselves feed. — Dante Alighieri

At home in bed that first night I had patchy, mundane dreams about normal things. It would be nobler and less uncomfortable to write that I tossed sleeplessly. — Darin Strauss

If any speak ill of thee, fly home to thy own conscience and examine thy heart. If thou art guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction. — George Herbert

The individual who dares commit a crime is guilty in a two-fold sense; first, he is guilty against human conscience, and, above all, he is guilty against the State in arrogating to himself one of its most precious privileges. — Mikhail Bakunin

If conscience is to do its work and the contrite heart is to feel its proper remorse, it is necessary for each individual to confess his sin by name. The confession must be intensely personal. In a meeting of ministers, probably no single sin should be acknowledged with deeper shame than the sin of prayerlessness. Each one of us needs to confess that we are guilty of this. — Andrew Murray

A bullet has no conscience to consult as it flies from the barrel of a gun. It doesn't feel the wind or the sun or the rain as it speeds toward its target. It penetrates the innocent and the guilty with equal intent and creates victims with the same enthusiasm with which it saves them from the bullets of others. — Bracken MacLeod

Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
[Lat., Exemplo quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi
Displicet auctori. Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.] — Juvenal

Many a criminal has finally given himself over to the authorities because the accusations of a guilty conscience were worse than prison bars. — Billy Graham

A new kind of award has been added
the deathbed award. It is not an award of any kind. Either the recipient has not acted at all, or was not nominated, or did not win the award the last few times around. It is intended to relieve the guilty conscience of the Academy members and save face in front of the public. The Academy has the horrible taste to have a star, choking with emotion, present this deathbed award so that there can be no doubt in anybody's mind why the award is so hurriedly given. Lucky is the actor who is too sick to watch the proceedings on television. — Marlene Dietrich

We cannot assume the injustice of any actions which only create offense, and especially as regards religion and morals. He who utters or does anything to wound the conscience and moral sense of others, may indeed act immorally; but, so long as he is not guilty of being importunate, he violates no right. — Wilhelm Von Humboldt

This was the sickness of the age, the revolutionary madness of the epoch. In thought everyone was different from his words and outward show. No one had a clear conscience. Each with good reason could feel himself guilty, a secret criminal, an unexposed deceiver. — Boris Pasternak

There comes a time when a man finds himself in front of a dark uncrossable abyss, which he himself has spent years digging. He cannot go forward, and has no way back. Words have failed, tears won't help, and who would he call out to? He can't even remember his own name. Then the man sees that on this god's green earth there is but one true suffering: the torment of guilty conscience. — Ivo Andric

How dare you?' Bayar began, but his voice had lost some of its force. 'How dare you come into this sacred hall, flinging accusations?'
'I have not yet made any accusations,' Willo said. 'Perhaps it is our own guilt clamoring in your ears. — Cinda Williams Chima

Mr. Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; who, for his own interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character. He has no feeling for others. Those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the slightest compunction. He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion. Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black! — Jane Austen

One faerie - and then we were free. Just on more swing of my arm.
And maybe one more after that - maybe one more swing, up and inward and into my own heart. — Sarah J. Maas

If any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart: if thou be guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction: make use of both; so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend. — Francis Quarles

People, in general, tend to project onto others their own state of mind. Well-meaning people inevitably assume other people are well meaning. People who cheat assume everyone cheats. People who deceive assume everybody deceives.
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 — Anna C. Salter

And it is enough for the poet to be the guilty conscience of his time. — Saint-John Perse

Eros had slept soundly after the tryst with his lovely secretary at the Paradise Hotel.And as his wife, Helen,slept beside him snoring, he was conscious of the fact that his body was reeking with the aroma of Psyche's Nectar.In spite of his having scrubbed away all possible tell-tale signs of any indiscretion on his part.However, Helen had noticed nothing, he told himself, so it must be his own imagination, or perhaps, guilty conscience.Yet, he had not committed adultery with his secretary, he assured himself.All he had was a wonderful meal. So he had not betrayed Helen. He had not sinned.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

He (John Puller) wanted to intimidate. Intimidated people with a guilty conscience often made mistakes. — David Baldacci

I have always admired him (Bergman), and I wish I could be an equally good filmmaker as he is, but it will never happen. His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience — Steven Spielberg

As for the errors I make, the only punishment I acknowledge for having made them is my awareness of those errors, and having to live with it: there is, there should be, no heavier penalty on a person's soul, mind and heart. — Joumana Haddad

He did not feel guilty. He did not feel. The rock was a solidification of his feeling, his conscience, his sense of reality, his self-knowledge. — Nathanael West

Vultures pick the meat clean off a bone. Guilt eats at the marrow, leaving a man hollow. — Richelle E. Goodrich

A guilty conscience speaks a thousand words...Just saying — Jasmine Lee

Guilt cannot change you; it can only hint that there's something worth your effort to change. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If anyone has a conscience it's generally a guilty one. — Max Frisch

Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace, Or wash away the stain: But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb, Takes all our sins away, A sacrifice of nobler nam' And richer blood than they. — Isaac Watts

We carry the world. They did. All those young men did. They carried the world, and it was heavy, and they didn't know what to do with it. Was this the rest? Was this the war? Things had already spun out of control and they weren't always as black and white or as right or wrong as Nick liked to think. — Matthew J. Hefti

I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused my wife and kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken, and all of those things you think sentimental, but which my generation calls simple human decency. And I miss my home, because I'm beginning to get scared shitless, because all of a sudden it's closer to the end than the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me, with definable features. — William Holden

A guilty conscience is jealousy's playground. — L. Quick

Guilt doesn't stop you from doing something. It just stops you from enjoying it. — Nityananda Das

White people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear. — Assata Shakur

Stricken by a guilty conscience, some men will say that I speak with excessive temerity about all men in general. They are greatly mistaken. If they behave justly, they will be protected from my attacks and those of others. I separate the just from the wicked (who are the subject of my discourse), since not all men are bad and not all women are good. — Arcangela Tarabotti

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;
Murder, stern murder in the dir'st degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty!, guilty! — William Shakespeare

We have no idea any more what it means to feel guilty. The communists have the excuse that Stalin misled them, murdurers have the excuse that their mothers didn't love them. And suddenly you come out and say: there is no excuse. No one could be more innocent in his soul and conscience than Oedipus, and yet he punished himself when he saw what he had done. — Milan Kundera