CONSCIENCE.
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God.
The Island, Canto I. LORD BYRON.
Oh, Conscience! Conscience! man's most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend;
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! woe for me, his deadliest foe!
Struggles of Conscience. G. CRABBE.
Conscience is harder than our enemies,
Knows more, accuses with more nicety.
Spanish Gypsy. GEORGE ELIOT.
Of a' the ills that flesh can fear,
The loss o' frien's, the lack o' gear,
A yowlin' tyke, a glandered mear,
A lassie's nonsense—
There's just ae thing I cannae bear,
An' that's my conscience.
My Conscience. R.L. STEVENSON.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
K. Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Why should not Conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance and return?
Hudibras, Pt. II. Canto II. S. BUTLER.
Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
K. Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Let his tormentor conscience find him out.
Paradise Regained, Bk. IV. MILTON.
Speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
K. Richard II., Act v. Sc. 6. SHAKESPEARE.
Leave her to Heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
K. Henry V., Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
True, conscious Honor is to feel no sin,
He's armed without that's innocent within;
Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of Brass.
First Book of Horace, Epistle I. A. POPE.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities;
A still and quiet conscience.
K. Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Don Juan, Canto I. LORD BYRON.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my Great Task-Master's eye.
On being arrived at his Three-and-Twentieth Year. MILTON.
And sure the eternal Master found
His single talent well employed.
Verses on Robert Levet. DR. S. JOHNSON.