24 quotes
Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison... the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
The rich man... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
When I meet a government which says to me, ‘Your money or your life,’ why should I be in haste to give it my money?
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are ... the most serious obstacles to reform.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Civil Disobedience (1849)