Guilt is a wound of pride. Conscience is the voice of truth. Guilt appears when a man measures himself against an imagined ideal — when he sees that he has failed to be the person he wanted to be. It keeps the attention on the self: I failed, I disappointed, I feel unworthy. It feeds on emotion and either hardens into self-pity or bursts into despair. Conscience, by contrast, is not emotional but moral. It speaks quietly and clearly: this act was wrong; this word was false; this thought was unclean. It does not exaggerate or dramatize; it simply points to what needs correction. When a man listens to conscience and repents, peace follows. When he ignores it, noise and confusion grow. Western thought often replaces conscience with guilt — teaching that man must pay or punish himself before he can be forgiven. But the Orthodox understanding is that clarity, not self-condemnation, heals the soul. The conscience is not there to torment, but to guide. When purified through confession and humility, it becomes a precise instrument: it warns before the fall and consoles after repentance. To live by guilt is to remain chained to the self. To live by conscience is to stand in truth before God — free, sober, and able to act rightly again.