Daily Inspiration Quote by Douglas Horton

Conscience, for Horton, is not a gavel that bangs down a verdict; it is a window that admits light. The image is domestic, intimate, almost architectural: the moral life isn’t primarily about dramatic public sins, but about what you allow into the house of the self. A window implies both exposure and possibility. It can be opened. It can be cleaned. It can also be looked through from the outside, suggesting the social dimension of ethics: a spirit with a clear window is legible, accountable, even inviting.

Then comes the darker turn: evil as curtain. Not a wrecking ball, not an invading army, but something softer and more insidious - fabric. Curtains don’t destroy windows; they nullify their purpose. Horton’s subtext is that evil often operates as obscuration rather than open rebellion. You don’t have to shatter your conscience to evade it. You just have to draw something across it: rationalizations, distractions, self-pity, ideology, pious busyness. The room stays intact; the darkness feels chosen.

As a mid-century clergyman formed by liberal Protestant currents, Horton is likely pushing against a punitive, fear-based moralism. He reframes spiritual failure as a crisis of perception. That makes the remedy equally practical: pull the curtain back. Attend to the inner light. Moral clarity becomes less about heroic purity than about refusing the small, convenient acts of hiding that let wrongdoing feel normal.