Famous civil-disobedience quotations

   I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
 ~ by Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849

   As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
 ~ by Clarence Darrow

Inspirational Sayings, Motivational Quotes, Wise Words, Witty Proverbs
   If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 ~ by Louis D. Brandeis

   It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
 ~ by Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation, 1775

   We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong.... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them.
 ~ by Alexander Bickel

   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.
 ~ by Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

   Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
 ~ by John J. Miller, And Hope to Die

   Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.
 ~ by Chinese Proverb

   No radical change on the plane of history is possible without crime.
 ~ by Hermann Keyserling

   When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.
 ~ by Veterans Fast for Life

   I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
 ~ by Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

   Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
 ~ by Albert Einstein

   Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.
 ~ by Martin Luther King, Jr., March 22, 1956

   Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
 ~ by Ralph Waldo Emerson

   It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
 ~ by Voltaire

   Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
 ~ by George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

   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.
 ~ by Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

   It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience.
 ~ by Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays, 1911

   Integrity has no need of rules.
 ~ by Albert Camus

   Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason.
 ~ by Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion

   Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
 ~ by Mark Twain

   Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence.
 ~ by Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

   We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was legal and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was illegal.
 ~ by Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, Why We Can't Wait, 1963

   If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
 ~ by Bishop Desmond Tutu



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