Guilty Conscience Quotes

While many believers walk around with a guilty conscience and feel disqualified to receive God's promises, we are able to enter a level of freedom that assures us we are qualified at any moment to boldly enter His presence, to shine with His glory, and to do great exploits for His kingdom. ~ Katherine Ruonala

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

Few things are as bad as a guilty conscience. ~ Buchi Emecheta

And yet, for all this, for all that he was unparalleled in depicting tyrants knee-deep in blood, Shakespeare was a little naive. Because his monsters had doubts, bad dreams, pangs of conscience, guilt. They saw the spirits of those they had killed rising in front of them. But in real life, under real terror, what guilty conscience? What bad dreams? That was all sentimentality, false optimism, a hope that the world would be as we wanted it to be, rather than as it was. Those who chopped the wood and made the chips fly, those who smoked Belomory behind their desks at the Big House, those who signed the orders and made the telephone calls, closing a dossier and with it a life: how few of them had bad dreams, or ever saw the spirits of the dead rising to reproach them." (p 94) ~ Julian Barnes

I was like a ten-year-old kid who had been scraped off a mother's love so sudden and surreal that I kept hoping I could chant a few magical words and slowly, Mama Jas would materialise in front of me. ~ Diyar Harraz

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

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

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

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

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness. ~ Eric Hoffer

Although they pretended to be angry, and because that finally destroyed their guilt, some people were each secretly happy to discover that their partner has cheated on them. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

A guilty conscience has nowhere to hide ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

It is easier to fight an army than to fight your conscience. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

A pang of guilt, like a blaring siren, should never be ignored. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

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

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

I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience. ~ Albert Einstein

A guilty conscience, urged with the thought
Of former evils, easily cannot err. ~ Thomas Kyd

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

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

Sorry' isn't a synonym for 'guilty.' It's a way to say you're listening. ~ Martina Boone

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

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

If you in fact had no gold, then your situation was hopeless. You would be beaten, burned, tortured, and steamed to the point of death or until they finally came to believe you. But if you had gold, you could determine the extent of your torture, the limits of your endurance, and your own fate. Psychologically, this situation was, incidentally, not easier but more difficult, because if you made an error

you would always be ridden by a guilty conscience. Of course, anyone who had already mastered the rules of the institution would yield and give up his gold - that was easier. But it was a mistake to give it up too readily. They would refuse to believe you had coughed it all up, and they would continue to hold you. But you'd be wrong, too, to wait too long before yielding: you'd end up kicking the bucket or they'd paste a term on you out of meanness. One of the Tatar draymen endured all the tortures: he had no gold! They imprisoned his wife, too, and tortured her, but the Tatar stuck to his story: no gold! Then they arrested his daughter: the Tatar couldn't take it any more. He coughed up 100,000 rubles. At this point they let his family go, but slapped a prison term on him. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

With every rise in choices, the expectations double up which puts people deeper down into the rubble. ~ Ashish Patel

A guilty conscience pushed me to try harder - which I did for what seemed like a tremendous amount of wasted time, staring bug-eyed at uncooperative pencils. What was missing? The answer seemed obvious - intense emotional incentive. But at the moment I didn't feel desperate or angry or afraid. Just severely bored out of my mind and guilt-ridden for feeling so mind-numbingly bored."
- from "Phantom's Veil ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

A guilty conscience means at least you have one. ~ Jakob Dylan

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

Guilty conscience confuse the humans from those that posses unscrupulous minds in action to control. ~ Rolf Kobi

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

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

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

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

Guilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves. ~ Iris Murdoch

...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

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

A guilty conscience is a great blessing, but only if it drives us to come home. ~ John R.W. Stott

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

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

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

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

All this is what it means to regret. ~ Matthew J. Hefti

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

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

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

That's why you have to go and guilt him for all the trouble. It can't be your fault that you lost your memory if he wasn't smart enough to tell you about the wine. ~ Denny B. Reese

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

The only restorative for a guilty conscience is a sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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

Whether man or beast, the secrets you kept in the fathoms of your heart always held you to ransom. ~ Dianna Hardy

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

The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt. ~ 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

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 the truth scares you, know that it is your guilty conscience reacting to Truth. ~ Billy Graham

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

The past is an annoying critic whose loud tirade of accusatory declamations detracts me from experiencing happiness. Loitering within the craggy shadows of my lithograph identification apparatus is the splayed viscera from the blood-soaked entrails of an egotistical self's riddled history. The unbidden past tugs at my sleeves similar to a persistent tramp demanding an attentive accounting. A disgraced personal self refuses to release its despotic hold upon my guilt-ridden psyche without exacting a sacrificial tithing. Strewn wreckage from my history of scandalous debacles cast a pall of shame over the present. The shambles of my disreputable past stifles my present desire to celebrate in the rudimentary grandeur of living robustly. With the past snarling its reproach, my mind is preoccupied with ugly thoughts, and every day reduced to a tiresome and worrisome filled existence that halts my progress towards achieving an envisaged life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

And you, Lord Bridgerton," she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, "are almost as handsome as your brother."
Colin snorted again, only this time it sounded as if he were being strangled.
"Are you all right?" Miss Sheffield asked.
"He's fine," Anthony barked.
She ignored him, keeping her attention on Colin. "Are you certain?"
Colin nodded furiously. 'Tickle in my throat."
"Or perhaps a guilty conscience?" Anthony suggested.
Colin turned deliberately from his brother to Kate. "I think I might need another glass of lemonade," he gasped.
"Or maybe," said Anthony, "something stronger. Hemlock, perhaps? ~ Julia Quinn

... Living with a conscience constitutes a merciless barrier to happiness... ~ Mark Haber

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

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

The Swamp of Despond is that place set before the narrow gate where true and false pilgrims alike are assaulted by their own internal corruption and pollution. The dirt and scum that has attached itself to our hearts and minds is agitated and revealed by both the workings of a guilty conscience and the devouring avarice of the enemy of our souls.The ~ John Bunyan

I'm not one of those people who likes to spill their guts to clear some perceived guilty conscience. Nor am I narcissistic enough to have to tell you my brilliant plans, because I can't help myself. I'm just doing what I have to in order keep my ass out of orange.-Celeste, The Widow ~ Josie Leigh

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

How tedious is a guilty conscience! ~ John Webster

A guilty conscience doth make cowards of us all," Andy said in his complacent, just-thought-you'd-like-to-know voice. "That's my free adaptation. ~ Stephen King

When once the gate is opened to self-torture, the whole army of fiends files in. ~ Henry James

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

You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully. ~ Richard Bach

America is a place of opportunity. It's people-friendly! Very much so, compared to the Muslim countries in the world. People looking for better lives flock to America because we as a society do not mutilate young girls' genitals, do not cut off people's hands for stealing. We do not stone people to death for committing adultery. We do not rape women and men for speaking up against our government. We do not forbid people to go to school and to learn because of their gender. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. We give people the freedom to criticize our government and even burn our flag as an expression of speech. This is but a partial list of why America is superior in culture and values to many other countries in the world. This type of culture also thrives in Israel, the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy. ~ Brigitte Gabriel

Be more careful of your conscience than of your estate. The latter can be bought and sold; the former never. ~ Hosea Ballou

The enforcement of the law cannot depend on the justice of a cause or one man's conscience. ~ Harold H. Greene

I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned, there was no problem. ~ Pol Pot

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

Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God. ~ Oswald Chambers

A clear conscience is a sure card. ~ John Lyly

I need you right now, Shea. My body is going up in flames, and I hurt like hell. We have to be alone soon or I might die."
Her laughter muffled against his chest. "No one has ever died because they wanted to make love." But she wasn't sure. Her own body was burning and begging for the connection to his.
Gregori suddenly materialized, made a soft, sighing noise, and sent them a clear frown. Like guilty children they broke apart. ~ Christine Feehan

I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say 'no' to other people with a clear conscience. ~ Beth Ditto

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin' wealthy. ~ Jim Carrey

How do I feel?
I feel alone, I can't let people in, I'll only get hurt. I feel scared, not only of people and places, but myself too. What if I lose control? I feel guilty. It's all my fault I'm like this, I just can't seem to change myself.
But how is it that I feel all of these feelings and still feel nothing? ~ Unknown

No, moral conscience is one thing, the law is another. We have to hold onto this difference. ~ Rocco Buttiglione

I'd get more applause than some because I was just seventeen. If they didn't clap at the end of my act I would limp off stage and boy would they feel guilty. They would all burst into tremendous applause as they saw this poor cripple kid walking off. ~ Jim Dale

Legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Tragedy depends on the way you see it. If you chose to be a victim of the world, anything which happens to you will feed that dark side of your soul, where you consider yourself wronged, suffering, guilty and deserving punishment. If you choose to be an adventurer, the changes - even the inevitable losses, since everything in this world changes - can cause some pain, but will soon thrust you forward, forcing you to react. ~ Paulo Coelho

We cheat ourselves in order to enjoy a calm conscience without possessing virtue. ~ Lambert Of Maastricht

It is in vain when conscience is aroused to fly to feelings and evidences for comfort; ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling vaguely guilty. ~ William S. Burroughs

Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty. ~ Herman Melville

But if there be an hereafter,And that there is, conscience, uninfluenc'dAnd suffer'd to speak out, tells every man,Then must it be an awful thing to die;More horrid yet to die by one's own hand. ~ Robert Blair

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through. ~ Kumi Naidoo

I had long since lost any illusion of being loved for who I was and now accepted, with clean conscience, flowers, flattery, and money that fed my ego and my false identity. ~ Mata Hari

She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people. ~ Janine Di Giovanni

Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect; the other extends it to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what they assert; both are wrong in what they deny. If one important truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold upon the conscience. The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism and more divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them. ~ Philip Schaff

Success surely comes with conscience in the long run, other things being equal. Capacity and fidelity are commercially profitable qualities. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Society's law was lax compared to the law of conscience ~ Patricia Highsmith

There's something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't even try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine