If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The newspapers are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines at Fort Independence. If a man neglects… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man's door, and utter their… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I repeat that in this sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having authority to consult about Transalpine interests only,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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