George Eliot Quotes About Conscience

• Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

  George Eliot

  Sports, Ignorance, Knowledge

  George Eliot (1876). “Daniel Deronda”, p.38

• Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be. . . .

  George Eliot

  Truth, May, Knowledge Is Power

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2985, Delphi Classics

• The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

  George Eliot

  Life, Literature, Compunction

  George Eliot (2016). “Felix Holt, The Radical: Top Novelist Focus”, p.132, 谷月社

• Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

  George Eliot

  Mistake, Giving, Alive

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.483, Penguin

• If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.

  George Eliot

  Dog, Mean, Justice

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.590

• A foreman, if he's got a conscience, and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for it.

  George Eliot

  Work, Men, Giving

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.121, Wordsworth Editions

• I don't remember ever being see-saw, when I'd made my mind up that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow creatures worse off instead o' better.

  George Eliot

  Should Have, Mind, Looks

  George Eliot (1900). “Works”

• Our consciences are not all of the same pattern.

  George Eliot

  Patterns, Conscience

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6056, Delphi Classics

• Conscience is harder than our enemies,
  Knows more, accuses with more nicety.

  George Eliot

  Enemy, Harder, Niceties

  GEORGE ELIOT (1868). “THE SPANISH GYPSY”, p.61

• Alas! the scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money obligation and selfish respects.

  George Eliot

  Selfish, Science, Obligation

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.483, Penguin

You May Also Like:

Jane Austen

Charlotte Bronte

Evelyn Waugh

Charles Dickens

Emily Bronte

Elizabeth Gaskell

Virginia Woolf