Conscience
['kɒnʃ(ə)ns] or ['kɑnʃəns]
Definition
(noun.) conformity to one's own sense of right conduct; 'a person of unflagging conscience'.
(noun.) a feeling of shame when you do something immoral; 'he has no conscience about his cruelty'.
(noun.) motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions.
Inputed by Donald--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) Knowledge of one's own thoughts or actions; consciousness.
(n.) The faculty, power, or inward principle which decides as to the character of one's own actions, purposes, and affections, warning against and condemning that which is wrong, and approving and prompting to that which is right; the moral faculty passing judgment on one's self; the moral sense.
(n.) The estimate or determination of conscience; conviction or right or duty.
(n.) Tenderness of feeling; pity.
Edited by Horace
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Moral sense, moral faculty, the still small voice.
Checked by Herman
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Sense, intuition, integrity, principle
ANT:[See PERTURB_and_STOICAL], license
Checked by Gwen
Definition
n. the knowledge of our own acts and feelings as right or wrong: sense of duty: scrupulousness: (Shak.) understanding: the faculty or principle by which we distinguish right from wrong.—adjs. Con′science-proof unvisited by any compunctions of conscience; Con′science-smit′ten stung by conscience; Conscien′tious regulated by a regard to conscience: scrupulous.—adv. Conscien′tiously.—n. Conscien′tiousness.—adj. Con′scionable governed or regulated by conscience.—n. Con′scionableness.—adv. Con′scionably.—Conscience clause a clause in a law affecting religious matters to relieve persons of conscientious scruples esp. one to prevent their children being compelled to undergo particular religious instruction; Conscience money money given to relieve the conscience by discharging a claim previously evaded; Case of conscience a question in casuistry.—Good or Bad conscience an approving or reproving conscience.—In all conscience certainly: (coll.) by all that is right and fair.—Make a matter of conscience to act according to conscience: to have scruples about.—My conscience! a vulgar exclamation of astonishment or an asseveration.—Speak one's conscience (Shak.) to speak frankly: to give one's opinion.
Editor: Shelton
Unserious Contents or Definition
To dream that your conscience censures you for deceiving some one, denotes that you will be tempted to commit wrong and should be constantly on your guard. To dream of having a quiet conscience, denotes that you will stand in high repute.
Typist: Serena
Unserious Contents or Definition
The fear of being found out.
Typed by Billie
Examples
- Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- My--hum--conscience would not allow it. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- Yet this consideration does not, or rather did not in after time, diminish the reproaches of my conscience. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- A few days before she had done a dreadful thing, and it weighed upon her conscience. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- Reflect, afterwards when--when you are at leisure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- He is mad--mad with the terrors of a guilty conscience. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- And were all this otherwise, wouldst thou have us show a worse conscience than an unbeliever, a Hebrew Jew? Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- But a man who believes in something else than his own greed, has necessarily a conscience or standard to which he more or less adapts himself. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- He bowed again, stepped back a few paces, and withdrew his conscience from our society as politely as he had introduced it. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity dragged me apart from her, and kept me sundered with ponderous fetters. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Often as not they disguise it under heroic phrases and still louder affirmation, just as most of us hide our cowardly submission to monotony under some word like duty, loyalty, conscience. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- In brief, the commission failed to see that the working conscience of America is to-day bound up with the very evil it is supposed to eradicate by a relentless warfare. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- We have already shown how the hold of the Catholic church upon the consciences of men was weakening at this time. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The church in the thirteenth century was extending its legal power in the world, and losing its grip upon men's consciences. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- But the methods by which it sought this reunion jar with our modern consciences. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Why not make up our minds that we know nothing, and then, while we quietly follow the dictates of our own consciences, hope the best? Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- I leave them to their own consciences. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- They did not want to have that sort of talk on their consciences on a day in which they might die. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- Philip was resolved to rule both the property and consciences of his Netherlander. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The bulk of these new Bible students took what their consciences approved from the Bible and ignored its riddles and contradictions. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is touched—if there are such things as consciences. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- Fly where you will, your consciences will go with you. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- And their consciences become strict against me. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- If the individuals in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great sacrifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- So long as the poor are docile in their poverty, the rest of us are only too willing to satisfy our consciences by pitying them. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- The church was losing its hold upon the consciences of princes and rich and able people; it was also losing the faith and confidence of common people. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Typed by Brandon