Civil Disobedience : Quotations
Civil Disobedience is a notable literary work by Henry David Thoreau. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, and various study materials of Civil Disobedience.
Quotations
Quotes
“That government is best which governs least.”
Explanation: Thoreau means that the best government is the one that interferes the least in people’s lives. Real progress comes from free and moral individuals, not from control or authority.
“That government is best which governs not at all.”
Explanation: Thoreau dreams of a future where people are so moral and self-reliant that no government is needed. When people learn to rule themselves, true freedom will come.
“We should be men first, and subjects afterward.”
Explanation: Thoreau says our first duty is to be moral human beings, not obedient citizens. Conscience must come before law or government.
“Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”
Explanation: Thoreau urges people to use their lives as resistance against injustice. Every moral act can slow down the machinery of an unjust state.
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
Explanation: When a state punishes innocent people, then honest people must be ready to go to jail rather than support injustice.
“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
Explanation: Thoreau believes that a person’s only true duty is to follow his conscience and do what is right, even if it goes against the law.
“If the law requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then break the law.”
Explanation: Thoreau says if obeying a law means doing harm to others, one must disobey that law immediately.
“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”
Explanation: Thoreau says we should not blindly respect laws; we should respect what is morally right. Laws can be wrong, but right is eternal.
“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.”
Explanation: Thoreau means that even if one person stands for truth against the whole world, he alone represents the real majority, because truth needs no numbers.
“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.”
Explanation: Thoreau ends by saying that true freedom will come only when the government respects every person’s moral conscience as sacred and independent.