Date: 1760-7

"Thus conscience, this once able monitor, --placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too,--by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,--does its office so negligently,--sometimes so corruptl...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in which has ruined thousands,--that your conscience is not a law."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"No, God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine;--not like an Asiatic Cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions,--but like a British judge in this land of liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares that law which he k...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued ...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind:--What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things,--that trifles light as air, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immoveably within it,--that Euclid's de...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"But whatever may be the authority of this inferiour tribunal which is continually before their eyes, if at any time it should decide contrary to those principles and rules, which nature has established for regulating its judgments, men feel that they may appeal from this unjust decision, and cal...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"The applause of the whole world will avail but little if our own conscience condemn us; and the disapprobation of all mankind is not capable of oppressing us, when we are absolved by the tribunal within our own breast, and when our mind tells us that mankind are in the wrong."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"But though this tribunal within the breast be thus the supreme arbiter of all our action, though it can reverse the decisions of all mankind with regard to our character and conduct, and mortify us amidst the applause or support us under the censure of the world; yet, if we enquire into the orig...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"In order to defend ourselves from such partial judgments, we soon learn to set up in our own minds a judge between ourselves and those we live with."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1761

"Such persons are not accustomed to consult the judge within concerning the opinion which they ought to form of their own conduct."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)