Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
- Source
- Civil Disobedience
- Date
- 1849
Meaning of “The only obligation which I have a right…”
Thoreau places personal moral judgment ahead of automatic obedience, arguing that conscience creates an individual responsibility to decide whether one’s own action is right.
Where does it come from?
Civil Disobedience, first published in 1849 as 'Resistance to Civil Government'; reviewed in the public-domain Miscellanies transcription. The obligation-to-do-right sentence occurs early in Thoreau's argument contrasting conscience with automatic deference to majority rule and law. It remains historical political philosophy rather than current legal advice or a blanket instruction to violate law.
