If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth, – certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider […]
Civil Disobedience Quotes
One can say categorically that there is no constitutional right of civil disobedience to a valid law.
Social protest and even civil disobedience serve the law’s need for growth.
The core of the evil in true civil disobedience is that it weakens the bonds of law and compels the state to resort to power.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry […]
Those whose conscience demands that they defy authority in some ways that involve great consequences must be willing to accept some penalty.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
The city into which I was born in 1880 had a reputation all over for what the English, in their real-estate advertising, are fond of calling the amenities. So far as I have been able to discover by a labored search of contemporary travel-books, no literary tourist, however waspish he may have been… ever gave […]
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Disobedience is the worst of evils. This it is that ruins a nation.
