For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe,
Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere;
And out of old bookes, in good faithe,
Cometh al this new science that men lere.
A clere conscience is a sure carde.
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
The play's the thing
Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,--'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.
They have cheveril consciences that will stretch.
Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.
Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?
One that will not plead that cause wherein his tongue must be confuted by his conscience.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumber'd,--wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse.
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won.
Perish that thought! No, never be it said
That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!
Conscience, avaunt! Richard's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!
My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
One science only will one genius fit:
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.
Note 9.La vray science et le vray étude de l'homme c'est l'homme (The true science and the true study of man is man).--Charron: De la Sagesse, lib. i. chap. 1.
Trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers.--Plato: Phædrus.
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.