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Conscientious   Listen
adjective
Conscientious  adj.  
1.
Influenced by conscience; governed by a strict regard to the dictates of conscience, or by the known or supposed rules of right and wrong; said of a person. "The advice of wise and conscientious men."
2.
Characterized by a regard to conscience; conformed to the dictates of conscience; said of actions. "A holy and conscientious course."
Synonyms: Scrupulous; exact; faithful; just; upright.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Conscientious" Quotes from Famous Books



... for the evening if she went away from this unlucky corner. If a wish of his could be granted by fate, she would never play again. Yet, desiring this with all the force that was in him, he began nevertheless to gamble, for the first time since coming to Monte Carlo. No conscientious scruple had held him back hitherto; but the game had not appealed to him. He disliked the crowding, the sordidness and vulgarity which, to his mind, attended it; and it seemed to him that public gambling was an ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... charging the queer people who called themselves Conscientious Objectors with cowardice, but the charge seemed a baseless one to Henry. He did not believe that he could endure the odium and obloquy which some of the Conscientious Objectors had borne. There was courage in the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... see no three crows this afternoon," added Uncle Billy gleefully, as his partner, in turn, began to shuffle the cards with laborious and conscientious exactitude. Then dealing, he turned up a heart for trumps. Uncle Billy took up his cards one by one, but when he had finished his face had become as pale as it had been red before. "What's the matter?" said Uncle Jim quickly, his own face ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... he received you into the office of Quaestor, and soon found you to be a conscientious man, learned in the law beyond your years[621]. You were the chief ornament of your times, inasmuch as you, by your blameless service sustaining the weight of that royal intellect by all the force of your ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... said to induce his son to go into the country on an errand for which he showed strong disinclination. "The duties are of such a trifling nature, you may perform them with perfect ease;" so said a minister to persuade a member of his church to undertake a responsible office against which he had conscientious objections. ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... something is History." To feel fully the difference between a formal, mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact, conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other bards and novelists. While the attempt, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold, Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons, ma'am? Yes, ma'am—all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... allotted, that the right parties should be chosen in every instance. History shows that no Administration from the time of Washington to the present has been free from these mistakes. But I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... naturalism confined one to monotonous studies of mediocre persons and to interminable inventories of the objects in a drawing-room or a landscape, an honest and clear-sighted artist would soon cease to produce, and a less conscientious workman would be under the necessity of repeating himself over and over again to the point of nausea. Nevertheless Durtal could see no possibilities for the novelist outside of naturalism. Were we to go back to the pyrotechnics ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... more, his own little brand-new mission church, with its brilliant rosy-cheeked images and artificial wreaths. The boys, fifteen and seventeen, had had enough of churches after two days at Milan, and Evelyn could hear from Herbert's conscientious, stumping tread that he was examining the church because a soldier must always ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... beneficial. On the other hand, an enemy may use fair and flattering words when he has enmity and deceit at heart, preferring to let you go on to ruin rather than by gentle reproof to warn of danger and rescue you from destruction. The faithful, conscientious physician must often, of necessity and with great pain to the patient, amputate a limb in ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... fables, a deep sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest ruffians for crimes subversive of civil society. To exterminate the whole Protestant party was known to be impossible; and nothing could appear more iniquitous, than to subject to torture the most conscientious and courageous among them, and allow the cowards and hypocrites to escape. Each martyrdom, therefore, was equivalent to a hundred sermons against Popery; and men either avoided such horrid spectacles, or returned from them full of a violent, though secret, indignation against the persecutors. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... the appellations of "honest and frugal"; and many a lawyer, with the character of conscientious ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... Mr. Carlyle was becoming inexpressibly waggish, and Carrados himself, although he did not abate a jot of his conviction, was compelled to bend to the realities of the situation. The manager, with the obstinacy of a conscientious man who had become obsessed with the pervading note of security, excused himself from discussing abstract methods of fraud. Carrados was not in a position to formulate a detailed charge; he withdrew from active investigation, content to await ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... "Which were the best troops from the South?" there would be as many answers and as much differences of opinions as there were States in the Confederacy, or organizations in the field, as each soldier was conscientious in his belief that those from his own State were the best in the army, his brigade the best in the division, his regiment the best in the brigade, and his own company the best in the regiment. This is a pardonable pride of the soldier, and is as it should be to make an army great. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... a startling confession for a conscientious dominie, and Cathro flung out his hands as if to withdraw the words, but his visitor would have no tampering with them. "So that sums up Tommy, so far as you know him," he said as he bade ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... this anxiety he resembles Brutus, and it is stronger in him than in any of the later heroes. And, secondly, it is highly probable that in his interminable broodings the kind of paralysis with which he was stricken masked itself in the shape of conscientious scruples as well as in many other shapes. And, finally, in his shrinking from the deed there was probably, together with much else, something which may be called a moral, though not a conscientious, repulsion: I mean a repugnance to the idea ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... Being conscientious Members of the Church, they modified their Perjury and smuggled only the usual amount of ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... was appointed historiographer, an office yielding a revenue of eighty thousand maravedis. The conscientious discharge of the duties of this congenial post, for which he was conspicuously fitted, won the approval of Mercurino Gattinara, the Italian chancellor of Charles V. Lucio Marineo Siculo speaks of Martyr as far back as December, 1510, as Consiliarius regius, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... grow one way and some the other. You had a large conscience once; if you've a small conscience now I reckon there are reasons for it. However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you used to be conscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It was a great many years ago. You probably do not remember it now. Well, I took a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish which certain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... all carefully guarded by the terms of the resolution, and that the company was not called upon to lay out any of its means for the promotion of the scheme. But notwithstanding all this, he did not feel, as a conscientious man, that he could, without further examination, give his vote for the resolution. He knew that this idea of Mr. Morse, however plausible it might appear to theorists and dreamers, and so-called men of science, was regarded by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... have in no instance taken liberties with facts, or allowed my imagination to influence me to the extent of giving a false impression or a wrong coloring. I have reaped my harvest more in the woods than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful and conscientious record of actual observations and experiences, and is true as it stands written, every word of it. But what has interested me most in Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... talking to the smallest fag as when addressing the Headmaster. He rather gave one the impression that he was thinking of something a fortnight ahead, or trying to solve a chess problem without the aid of the board. In appearance he was on the short side, and thin. He was in the Sixth, and a conscientious worker. Indeed, he was only saved from being considered a swot, to use the vernacular, by the fact that from childhood's earliest hour he had been in the habit of keeping wicket like an angel. To a good wicket-keeper ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... rest thinking, with regard to his own love affair, that perhaps four or even a larger number of eyes, quite as ardent as those of De Guiche and Buckingham, were coveting his own idol in the chateau at Blois. "And Mademoiselle de Montalais is by no means a very conscientious garrison," said ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of the Sacrament would be the daily sacrifice, nevertheless we would retain it rather than the adversaries, because with them priests hired for pay use the Sacrament. With us there is a more frequent and more conscientious use. For the people use it, but after having first been instructed and examined. For men are taught concerning the true use of the Sacrament that it was instituted for the purpose of being a seal and testimony of the free remission ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... it. Personally I am not interested in spirits, and no spirit has ever interested itself in me. But I have friends whom they patronise, and my mind is quite open on the subject. Of Whibley's Spirit I wish to speak with every possible respect. It was, I am willing to admit, as hard-working and conscientious a spirit as any one could wish to live with. The only thing I have to say against it is that it ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... been a marked change in the children. Their characters have much improved and they have been, in all respects, more conscientious and trustworthy. One of the boys has, I think, found a Christian home, and the ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... nose like the beak of a poll-parrot—'to propose the health of my excellent and highly esteemed friend, Frank Sydney. Gentlemen, I am a plain man, unused to flattery, and may be pardoned for speaking openly before the face of our friend—for I will say it, he is the most noble hearted, enlightened, conscientious, consistent, and superlatively good fellow I ever met in the course ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in charging the enemy. There was a brandy that had been purchased by a cultured colonel a few years after the battle of Waterloo. It has been maturing ever since, and it was a marvelous brandy at the purchasing. The memory of that liquor would cause men to weep as they ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... small joy for women in those days we call the "good old times." Take the married woman, the house-mother of that period. She not only lived in the strictest retirement, but her duties were so complex and manifold that, to quote Bebel, "a conscientious housewife had to be at her post from early in the morning till late at night in order to fulfil them. It was not only a question of the daily household duties that still fall to the lot of the middle-class housekeeper, but of many others from which she has been entirely freed ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... preachers and teachers were forced to sign the Forty- two Articles; and severe enactments, known as "Acts for the Uniformity of Service," punished with severe penalties any departure from the forms of the new prayer-book. The Princess Mary, who remained a firm and conscientious adherent of the old faith, was not allowed to have the Roman Catholic service in her own private chapel. Even the powerful intercession of the Emperor Charles V. availed nothing. What was considered idolatry in high places could not ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... hair, and went away. Barbara looked after her, and thought that Carter was a beast, and that there was something very pitiful about common little ignorant Miss Page, and that she wouldn't tell the girls about this, and give them one more cause to laugh at the little actress. For Barbara Toland was a conscientious girl, and very seriously impressed with the gravity of her ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... suffered, personally and through his family, from Spanish misrule, his interest in the management of his vast estates should occupy only a secondary position in his mind; and that he should relegate that management almost entirely to the capable hands and conscientious mind of Senor Calderon, giving the first and most important place to the advancement, by every means in his power, of the aims of the revolutionaries. With this object, therefore, he shut himself up in his own private room for the three weeks following his return home, and plunged ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... usually reserved and gloomy. His leisure hours, which were many, were passed either in his study or in solitary walks; in short, he seemed to take no further interest in my happiness or improvement, than a conscientious regard to the discharge of his own ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... of Purple Springs School had reached the climax of their professional duties. They were about to appoint a teacher, and being conscientious men, anxious to drive a good bargain for the people, they were proceeding with ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... Peggy sent her letter off every Sunday afternoon—a conscientious report of the week's happenings. Her "log," she called it, and it was the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... weariness soon inclined him to sleep. Miss Walton's voice sounded far away. Then it passed into his dream as that of Miss Bently chiding him affectedly for his wayward tendencies; again it was explaining that conscientious young lady's "sense of duty" in view of Mr. Grobb's offer, and even in his sleep his face darkened with ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... narrowly escaped losing the favour of the King. An attempt was in fact made, which Madame de Maintenon strongly supported, to get them disgraced; and, but for the Archbishop of Paris, this would have taken place. But this prelate, thoroughly upright and conscientious, counselled the King against such a step, to the great vexation of his relations, who were the chief plotters in the conspiracy to overthrow the two Dukes. As for M. de Cambrai's book 'Les Maxinies des Saints', it was as little liked as ever, and underwent rather a strong criticism ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... with the fraternity of authors was thought a little "strong" by Ariosto's contemporaries. The lesson read to the house of Este is obvious, and could hardly have been pleasant to men reputed to be such "criminals" themselves. Nor can Ariosto, in this passage, be reckoned a very flattering or conscientious pleader for his brother-poets. Resentment, and a good jest, seem to have conspired to make him forget what was ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... it, little one," I heard Bob answer. "He don't want ye to go; it's some kind of conscientious scruple as he's got into his head that makes him talk that a-way. Between you and me,"—here his voice sank to a kind of confidential growl, but I distinctly heard every word, nevertheless—"it's my idee ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... M'Carstrow, satisfied that rules of law are very arbitrary things in the hands of officials-that such property is difficult to get out of the meshes of legal technicality-that honour is neither marketable or pledgeable in such cases, must move quickly: he seeks the very conscientious attorneys, gets them together, pleads the necessity of the case: a convention is arranged, Graspum will value the property-as a weigher and gauger of human flesh. This done, M'Carstrow signs a bond in the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, making himself ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... plays are much easier and more agreeable reading than Ben Jonson's. Though often loose in their plots and without that consistency in the development of their characters which distinguished Jonson's more conscientious workmanship, they are full of graceful dialogue and beautiful poetry. Dryden said that after the Restoration two of their plays were acted for one of Shakspere's or Jonson's throughout the year, and he added, that they "understood ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... record of some of his maxims, such as "Spare the rod and spoil the child," "The letter enters with blood," and other similar indications of his heroic treatment of the unfortunates under his care. However, if he was a strict disciplinarian, Master Justiniano was also a conscientious instructor, and the boy had been only a few months under his care when the pupil was told that he knew as much as his master, and had better go to Manila to school. Truthful Jose repeated this conversation without the modification which modesty might have suggested, and his father responded rather ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... that the presence of a clergyman was necessary for Holy Communion. There were besides himself only two Englishmen at Khartoum during the siege, and one of them was Power, a Roman Catholic, who, although a great admirer of Gordon, probably would, from early training, have had conscientious scruples about taking the Lord's Supper without the presence of a priest. The other Englishman was Colonel Stewart, who, despite his friendship for Gordon, was not in sympathy with him in regard to religious matters. Had the three Englishmen been like-minded, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... or not so very much better than these as might be wished, are our efforts to translate Homer. From Chapman to Avia, or Mr. William Morris, they are all eminently conscientious, and erroneous, and futile. Chapman makes Homer a fanciful, euphuistic, obscure, and garrulous Elizabethan, but Chapman has fire. Pope makes him a wit, spirited, occasionally noble, full of points, and ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... me, "Do you say on your honor, Colonel, that you don't know a Lieut. Wm. O. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I do"; but I left him to guess whether I meant "I do know" or "I do say!" I quieted my conscientious scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.! The baffled officer left very angry, and "Where's Gardner at?" passed ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... speech and in practice with that awful Hulda; she experimented long and patiently; she blistered her pretty face and burned her little hands over that kitchen range—yes, a slow, constant martyrdom that conscientious wife willingly endured for years in her enthusiastic determination to do her duty by Lute. Doughnuts, chicken-pies, boiled dinners, layer-cakes, soda biscuits, flapjacks, fish balls, baked beans, squash pies, corned-beef hash, dried-apple sauce, currant wine, succotash, brown bread—how valorously ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... Robert Macleod, who marched next to them, and had no conscientious scruples about talking, "we may mairch oot smert eneugh, but some o' us'll no' ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... Rising of 1666,[4] which is still in existence but a great rarity; the same subject inspired a romance, and another romance was composed about Hackston of Rathillet, that sombre and impressive witness of the murder of Archbishop Sharp, whose conscientious refusal either to take part for or against the victim had from childhood appealed to Mr Stevenson as pathetic and picturesque. He also wrote in those days a poetical play, some dramatic dialogues, and a pamphlet called An Appeal to the Church of Scotland, in which his father was keenly ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... [25] In the caverns of Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the most conscientious fanatics. From that moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was invariably ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Sidney, in his 'Defense of Poesie.'] That craziness, as the third reader deciphers, rose out of a deeper soil than any bodily affection. It had its root in penitential sorrow. Oh, bitter is the sorrow to a conscientious heart, when, too late, it discovers the depth of a love that has been trampled under foot! This mariner had slain the creature that, on all the earth, loved him best. In the darkness of his cruel superstition he had done it, to save his human brothers from a fancied ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... I pay hard-working, conscientious ladies to teach this child things right and proper for her to know. They tell her clever things that Julius Caesar said; observations made by Marcus Aurelius that, pondered over, might help her to become a beautiful character. She complains ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... write. He was an old man, and never could make short work of anything. They say that his chief political value was to be set on when anyone was wanted to speak against time. I know he was very dreadful at all the platforms in the county; but he was very good and conscientious, and everyone looked up to him as a sort of ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... myself in these momentous times from the orders of a President who has treated me with much distinguished kindness and courtesy, whom I know upon much personal intercourse to be patriotic, without sectional prejudices; to be highly conscientious in the performance of every duty, and of unrivaled activity and perseverance; and to you, Mr. Secretary, whom I now officially address for the last time, I beg to acknowledge my many obligations for the ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... derivation, modification, expansion, extension, revision; second edition &c (repetition) 104. servile copy, servile imitation; plagiarism, counterfeit, fake &c (deception) 545; pasticcio^. Adj. faithful; lifelike &c (similar) 17; close, conscientious. unoriginal, imitative, derivative. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... brought up to her attention in the course of conversation and inquiry. All those were submitted to persons fully competent to decide as to the reliability of the evidence, and the strictest and most conscientious care was taken ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... tenderness to women whom he liked gave variety and charm, would supervene upon his seriousness with a rapidity which her far less flexible temperament could not follow. Hence she, thinking him still in earnest when he had swerved into florid romance, had been dangerously misled. He had no conscientious scruples in his love-making, because he was unaccustomed to consider himself as likely to inspire love in women; and Gertrude did not know that her beauty gave to an hour spent alone with her a transient charm which few men of imagination and address could resist. She, who ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... practical eye of Miss Grierson, here was certainly a young woman who needed a lot of working over to make into a lady. And though weary and unthrillable as an old horse, Miss Grierson was conscientious, and she was going to do ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... go up and down Valladolid, A man of mark, to know next time you saw. His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked, and tapped the pavement with his cane, {10} Scenting ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... my duty as a conscientious traveller, and had observed a thousand precautions against defiling, even with a breath, the spotless purity of that jewel of a room, I entered my first Dutch bed with the timidity ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... patient and injury to his practice. The abominable, aboriginal and almost universal custom at the present time of giving some physic to "cleanse" the gastro-intestinal canal is in every respect a deplorable mistake for a conscientious doctor ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... put herself in his power, was impossible for one like her. It was not, however, from any thing like moral cowardice that she held aloof from making an interview with him; nor was it from any thing like conscientious scruples; nor yet from maidenly modesty. It arose, most of all, from pride, and also from a profound perception of the advantages enjoyed by one who fulfilled all that might be demanded by the proprieties of life. Her aim was to see Gualtier under circumstances that were unimpeachable—in the room ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... College drew its breath from me, but I was yearning for retirement. The question was, Who else could sustain this institute, under all that was aimed at its vital purpose, the establishment of genuine Christian Science healing? My conscientious scruples about diplomas, the recent experience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and the growing conviction that every one should build on his own foundation, subject to the one builder and maker, God,—all these considerations moved me to close my flourishing school, ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... form of secret attack, the anonymous letter, demands, unfortunately, a large amount of attention from the handwriting expert. One of the most pleasant rewards that can attend the conscientious and painstaking student of handwriting lies in the knowledge that his art may sometimes enable him to bring to deserved punishment the assassin of reputation and ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... thought much of his talents, or perceived anything remarkable about him. He returned home in 1816, full of health and vigour, the personification of happiness; and his conscientious mother immediately set to work to repair the deficiencies of his former education, and sent him to lectures at the Sorbonne, where he heard extempore speeches from such men as Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. Apparently this ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... Tom, who lived up in Wyoming, where Johnny came from. It appeared that in an easier day Tom was hired by some cattle men to thin out the sheep herders who insisted upon invading the public ranges. By Johnny's account Tom did the thinning with conscientious attention to detail and gave general satisfaction for a while; but eventually he grew careless in his methods and took to killing parties who were under the protection of the game laws. Likewise his own private collection of yearlings began to increase with a ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... made every effort to induce the government to better its methods, and had tried to familiarize the people with the principles of political economy. Consequently, when he was put in charge of the nation's finances, it seemed as if he and the conscientious young king might find some remedy for ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... clearly appears, while degraded by the humble office assigned to him, did his best, by performing its duties well, to elevate it. He acted humanely towards poor people, but was the conscientious servant of the government in protecting the revenue in essential matters. The editor has been fortunate enough to discover some documents which set his character as a man of affairs ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... might be. Long before the Sturgis Water Line had hung out its neat shingle at the harbor-master's wharf; before the Maestro and music had made a new interest in Kirk's life; while Applegate Farm was still confusion—Felicia had attacked the Braille system with a courage as conscientious as it was unguided. She laughed now to think of how she had gone at the thing—not even studying out the alphabet first. In the candle-light, she had sat on the edge of her bed—there was no other furniture in the room—with one of Kirk's ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... proclamation was made of forgiveness accorded by the Queen to her captor in consideration of his past and future services, and her intention was announced to reward them by further promotion; and on the same day (May 12th) he was duly created duke of Orkney and Shetland. The Duke, as a conscientious Protestant, refused to marry his mistress according to the rites of her Church, and she, the chosen champion of its cause, agreed to be married to him, not merely by a Protestant, but by one who before his conversion had been a Catholic bishop, and therefore ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... civilisation was marked by the appearance of a small herd of bullocks, evidently stragglers from "Hannan's," and had we been further from that place I do not doubt that our desire for fresh beef might have overcome our conscientious scruples. Virtue, however, was rewarded, for on awakening one morning I saw advancing towards our camp, with slow and solemn curiosity, two emus, peering now this way, now that, examining our packs and other gear with interest and delight. Choosing the younger ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... anatomy under the direction of the doctor. Huxley's master was his brother-in-law, Dr. Salt, a London practitioner, and he began his work when only twelve or thirteen years of age. In this system everything depended upon the superior; under the careful guidance of a conscientious and able man it was possible for an apt pupil to learn a great deal of science and to become an expert in the treatment of disease. Huxley, however, had only a short experience of this kind of training. He was taken by some senior student friends to ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... the squire, "you gratify me. It has ever been my aim to discharge with conscientious fidelity the important trusts which the town has ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... libel with the intention charged, you will pronounce your verdict of guilty. If, on the other hand, you think that the passages which I have read to you contain nothing libelous, or that the defendant is not the publisher, I shall sincerely rejoice in your conscientious acquittal. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... doubtless history will not modify. But if this princess was guilty, more than one attenuating circumstance may be urged in her defence, and we should, in justice, remember that it was not without a struggle, without tears, distress, and many conscientious scruples, that she decided to obey her father's rigid orders and become again what she had been before her ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... without an acknowledged head. That this head must be the successor of St. Peter, is declared alike by the voice of tradition, the explicit testimony of the early writers, the repeated utterances of later theologians of all schools, and that general sentiment which presses itself upon every conscientious reader of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... converted to Christianity when his countrymen seemed about to be consigned to judicial blindness; and he was "called to be an apostle" [59:2] when others had been labouring for years in the same vocation. But he possessed peculiar qualifications for the office. He was ardent, energetic, and conscientious, as well as acute and eloquent. In his native city Tarsus he had probably received a good elementary education, and afterwards, "at the feet of Gamaliel," [59:3] in Jerusalem, he enjoyed the tuition of a Rabbi of unrivalled celebrity. The apostle of the Gentiles ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... between the Christian faith and Islam. The first two, Waraka and Othman, were cousins of Mohammed's wife, and the third, Obadulla, was his own cousin. Zaid, the last of the four, presents to us a very pathetic picture. He lived and died in perplexity. Banished from Mecca by those who feared his conscientious censorship, he lived by himself on a neighboring hillside, an earnest seeker after truth to the last; and he died with the prayer on his lips, "O God, if I knew what form of worship is most pleasing to thee, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... be not only well educated and refined, but also a conscientious and good woman, Elsie was willing to entrust her children to her care; the more so, because Lily in her feeble state, required much of ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... round and began to cry, Senor! tauro! tauro! The people were asking me to obtain for them a bull-fight, which is what they like best in the world, and what the King had not permitted for several years from conscientious principles. Therefore I contented myself the next day with simply telling him of these cries, without asking any questions thereon, while expressing to him my astonishment at an illumination so surprising ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... nothing more nor less than a table spoonful of brandy, which Bobby, who had conscientious scruples about drinking ardent spirits, at first refused to take. Then Tom argued the point, and the sick boy yielded. The dose made him sicker yet, and nature came to his relief, and in a little while he ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... depressed, almost silent, huskily making mouths at his fellow actors and the audience. His voice would even desert him in the middle of an evening, thus producing an impression that he was trifling with his audience. No judgment could have been more unjust, for he was a conscientious artist, but the effect of this defect, as Polonius might say, was therefore no less disastrous, and he soon gave place to artists less admirable but more ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... streets, who would often gather in gangs before the gate to pursue and terrify these inoffensive children, who were striving to gather wisdom and understanding in their little sanctuary. The police took no cognizance of such brutality in those days. But their dauntless teacher, uncompromising, conscientious, and self-possessed in her aggressive work, in no manner turned from her course by this persecution, was, on the other hand, stimulated thereby to higher vigilance and energy in her great undertaking. The course of instruction in the school was indeed of a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... when he came to estimate a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the world." His tendency was to think—or at any rate to speak and act—as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before ninety-nine out of a ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... conclusions. In all of them he was successful; and it may be said that he rarely assumed a position on behalf of the Government, in any important case, in which he was not sustained by the judgment of the court. His advocacy was conscientious and judicial rather than experimental— as is eminently fitting in the official representative of the Government. It best subserves the ends of justice, the suppression of useless litigation, and the prompt administration of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... somewhere or other. They come to take it all quite easily. And if they were pure angels, somebody would attack them. Most people, even those who differ from him, know, that, if this world has a humble, conscientious, pious man in it, that man is the present Archbishop of Canterbury: yet last night I read in a certain powerful journal, that the great characteristics of that good man are cowardice, trickery, and simple rascality! Honest Mr. Bumpkin, kind-hearted Miss Goodbody, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... De Hass, in his History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of West Virginia,—a conscientious work, which depends, however, too closely on traditions,—says (p. 225), "out of the fourteen, but two escaped."—R. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... will in a spirit of moderation, justice, and brotherly kindness, will constitute a cement which would forever preserve our Union. Those who cherish and inculcate sentiments like these render a most essential service to their country, while those who seek to weaken their influence are, however conscientious and praiseworthy their intentions, in effect its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... "it has been a terrible, earnest fact with me: nothing but haul, conscientious work, privations, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... with the noble building of Euclid's geometry, and you remember — perhaps with more respect than love — the magnificent structure, on the lofty staircase of which you were chased about for uncounted hours by conscientious teachers. By reason of our past experience, you would certainly regard everyone with disdain who should pronounce even the most out-of-the-way proposition of this science to be untrue. But perhaps ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein

... then been directed to keep in communication with Burnside, and to advance when the latter did, nobody will doubt that Sumner would have been prompt in sustaining his comrades. But both Sumner and Burnside were made to feel that they were reduced from their proper rank, and however conscientious they might be in carrying out such orders as reached them, it was not in human nature that they should volunteer suggestions or anticipate commands. McClellan had thus thrown away the advantages, if there were any, in holding only two or three men directly responsible ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... as Mark Twain. Dr. Clemens was, indeed, no mean literary critic; witness his epoch-making study of Prof. Dowden's Life of Shelley, while his researches into the biography of Jeanne d'Arc were most conscientious. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... answer, but secretly she felt some conscientious scruples with regard to Lucy's grandchildren! As for Berintha she seemed entirely changed, and flitted about the house in a manner which caused Lucy to call her "an old fool, trying to ape sixteen." With a change of feelings her personal appearance also changed, and when she one day ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... study class twice a week and Hannah had more or less minded the two in their mother's absence. The incongruity of this had never struck her. Or if it had she had never mentioned it to Marcia. There were a good many things she never mentioned to Marcia. Marcia was undoubtedly a conscientious mother, thinking of her children, planning for her children, hourly: their food, their clothes, their training, their manners, their education. Asparagus; steak; French; health shoes; fingernails; dancing; ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... my sister, the most engaging dog I have ever known. Roddy was a great truant, and went away sometimes for days and even weeks. Game is carefully preserved on the surrounding estates, and we were always afraid that Roddy, in his private hunting expeditions, might fall a victim to a conscientious keeper's gun, which, alas, was doubtless the cause of his final and deeply lamented disappearance. Hugh had a great affection for Roddy, and showed it, when he came to Tremans, by keeping Roddy constantly at his heels, having ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use all the means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell, who in his constant charity of interpretation was inclined to esteem Lydgate the more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit of a better plan, had his mind disturbed with doubts during his wife's attack of erysipelas, and could not abstain from mentioning to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a similar occasion had administered a series of boluses which were not otherwise definable than by their ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... he have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is not her Serene Highness an unexceptionable Lady, heroic ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... transport, his provisions for the journey, how he gets into the case, his age, his trade, his birthplace, what he has done in the past, what he hopes to do in the future, etc., etc., and I have done all that a conscientious reporter can do. That is what I want to know; that is what I will ask him. It is not ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... his reserve, seemed the involuntary victim of mental disorder. But, in fact, his reserve might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then here was evinced the unhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of large ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality; transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... said Horace Mann, "unless you believe your client is right and his cause is just." On the contrary, Lord Brougham declared that "the conscientious lawyer must be at the service of the criminal as well as of the state." And this great lawyer proceeds to argue with characteristic ability that it is as much the duty of the lawyer to work for the cause he knows to be wrong as for the cause ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge



Words linked to "Conscientious" :   careful, conscientiousness, conscientious objector, conscience



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