Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Protest

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

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Libertarian Party, Historical

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.23, Heron Dance Press

• If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Motivational, Religious, Freedom

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Savio 1

• In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Jail, Mexican

• Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few - as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men - serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Hero, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.3, Cambridge University Press

• It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Hands, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.207, North Point Press

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