One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
quote by Martin Luther King

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law ... That would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
quote by Martin Luther King

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Inner Voice - Conscience
Laws on earth can be made, unmade;
Laws can be bettered or worsened by change;
Laws may be just or unjust and never perfect;
Laws can be changed for comfort and convenience.
Laws may change from time to time;
Laws cannot reflect truth always;
Laws depend on the constituent makers;
Laws can never be ideal for all times!
But the inner Voice -the Conscience is static;
It always speaks the truth irrevocably;
It is not transmutable anytime;
It can never lie ever even by chance.
The Inner Voice scores over laws always;
One's conscience always tells what is right;
Freedom of man's conscience is paramount;
Laws to stifle the Inner Voice are simply futile!
Laws are needed but must be just and fair;
Laws aren't needed to fetter the conscience;
Laws are man-made and transmutable;
Conscience is God-given, remaining the same in everyone!
Obey the laws when they are fair and just;
Heed to your Conscience, God's law-maker within!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 14-02-12
poem by John Celes

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Those people,
Those people,
Those people are so cruel,
All those people were so unfair,
I must believe my conscience,
Life is so unjust,
Most of them kill with no mercy,
I can see them all,
I must come to believe,
Those people are so unjust,
Take mine for grabs,
I cannot believe those people,
They must know all they did unto me.
poem by Maxpoet Beauty

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War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
quote by Leo Tolstoy

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet: Respect
Respect your elders all if they deserve;
Respect your servants too who you well serve;
Respect your father for tilling the soil;
Respect your mother for her love and toil.
Respect all teachers who gave you knowledge;
Respect your friend who saved you from the ledge;
Respect all good minds who advised you good;
Respect the man of God who gave soul’s food.
Respect all strangers who were all Godsends;
Respect your foes who taught you self-defense;
Respect those evil men who you troubled;
Respect the tempter who well you misled.
Respect your conscience which tells you what’s right;
Respect your God who is your Friend and Guide.
poem by John Celes

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Remember This Lack of Conscience - 'For Maya Angelou'.
When time goes past and dithers not
One sees the blame that gathers moss
To feel akin with woe as one
I'll forgive myself and you to soldier on
Remember this lack of conscience when we meet
I was violated, raped and beaten within to provide a treat
Remember this lack of conscience when I get out
To see through with vision all I espy
Remember this lack of conscience which will know no bounds
To hideously transform love profound
Remember this lack of conscience when I am free
You will lose and you know me
Remember this lack conscience less you forget
That freedom is precious and not a threat
Remember this lack of conscience when the bars are bent
I will slip out into the depths of crass to vent
Remember this lack of conscience to come
The Devil has a new spawn and drum
Remember this lack of conscience gathering
To prove nothing but give a battering
Remember this lack of conscience wild
It has no remorse just like a child
Remember this lack of conscience like the Hawk
Which draws blood, looks on and gawks
Remember this lack of conscience with the Demon within
It's a Golem to clear the the Evil and get even
Remember this lack of conscience when you renege
The death of love can be ones grave
Remember this lack of conscience and tremor not
No fruit you bear or shall ever to care
Remember this lack of conscience that prevails
The trial is over and you have failed
Remember this lack of conscience and grow
To a woman that a man can know
Remember this lack of conscience that forgave
and now with Love sends you away
For Maya Angelou - ' Remember This Lack of Conscience'.
poem by Azriel Dreams

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It is better to be the victim of injustice than to be unjust yourself.
Never
Never confuse Conscience with Regret.
for Reasons' comfort keep them separate
one guards the gardens' entrance, one the exit
one 'tenebrae' cries while one sighs 'lux sit.'
'Number the things you did or left undone-
these are the things that matter' grins Regret,
there is no salvation for you, none,
Redemption is the thing you might forget'.
'Steer clear the ruts that pit the road that on-
ward arches through the gloom till dawn:
respect yourselves and do nobody harm',
smiles Conscience, 'and against Injustice arm.
you may not go to heaven, this is true,
but heaven will be glad to go to you'.
poem by Morgan Michaels

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No, we are not the master of the state, said King. We are not the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. The churches or the religious community should be, I think, the conscience of the state. We're not just service providers.
quote by Jim Wallis

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Conscience And Remorse
'GOOD-BYE,' I said to my conscience —
'Good-bye for aye and aye,'
And I put her hands off harshly,
And turned my face away;
And conscience smitten sorely
Returned not from that day.
But a time came when my spirit
Grew weary of its pace;
And I cried: 'Come back, my conscience;
I long to see thy face.'
But conscience cried: 'I cannot;
Remorse sits in my place.'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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I speak of that justice which is based solely upon human conscience, the justice which you will rediscover deep in the conscience of every man, even in the conscience of the child, and which translates itself into simple equality. This justice, which is so universal but which nevertheless, owing to the encroachments of force and to the influence of religion, has never as yet prevailed in the world of politics, of law, or of economics, should serve as a basis for the new world. Without it there is no liberty, no republic, no prosperity, no peace! It should therefore preside at all our resolutions in order that we may effectively cooperate in establishing peace.
quote by Mikhail Bakunin

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Conscience –
The ‘Inner Voice’ in-built by God,
In every human being born,
That tells what’s wrong and what is right,
And helps in moral decisions!
The laws of lands may change a lot;
The guidelines may be different;
The ethics too metamorphose;
But Conscience keeps the truth standard!
The modern man has ‘conscience rot’!
His faith in science has grown mammoth;
He thinks all things are human made –
Believing in mere human strength!
The world cannot ignore conscience;
No man can do much, without God;
If laws are made for human rights,
They shan’t be anti-God /Nature!
Man better heed to conscience first;
All things he does will turn out fine;
Ethical dilemmas vanish,
And soul of man will stay most pure!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 1-21-2010
poem by John Celes

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Olympic Torch
Peace, love and God
Have been sadly forsaken
Replaced by a greed
For money and power
A way of life
Is suffocating and dying
Being drained of its blood
In isolation
How do we interpret
The world’s insouciance
How do we salve
Our collective conscience
The world should protest
With a deafening voice
Against the unjust spillage
Of innocent blood
One world; one freedom
One rule for all
poem by Leonard Daranjo

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A Certain Man
A certain man wishes to be a prince
Of this earth; he also wants to be
A saint and master of the being-world.
Conscience cannot exist in the first:
The second cannot exist without conscience.
Therefore he, who has enough conscience
To be disturbed but not enough to be
Compelled, can neither reject the one
Nor follow the other...
poem by Jean Toomer

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We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again.
quote by Samuel Rutherford

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Freedom is inseparable from conscience. And even if it is true that all the ideas developed by the social consciousness are the product of evolution, conscience at least has nothing to do with the historic process. Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation.
quote by Andrei Tarkovsky

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.
quote by Jacob Bronowski

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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