"Civil Disobedience" Quotes

That government is best which governs not at all.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least.'

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?

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.

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.

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.

In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.