Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Named source · 1849

Civil Disobedience Quotes by Henry David Thoreau: Context & Meanings

3 quotations linked to Civil Disobedience by or associated with Henry David Thoreau, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

More by Henry David Thoreau
About this source

1849 political and moral essay, first printed as “Resistance to Civil Government”

Topics and ideas

Conscience, justice, freedom, integrity, individual obligation, resistance and the relation between law and moral judgment.

Read the source

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.

Primary / edition source · en.wikisource.org ↗ Primary / edition source · en.wikisource.org ↗
Leading themes in this source

Prominent ideas connected with the quotations represented here

Freedom 3Honesty 3Integrity 3Character 3Courage Quotes About Acting Despite Fear 2Independence 2Self-Respect Quotes About Dignity & Boundaries 2Short 2Conscience 2Justice 2Decision 1Leadership 1Responsibility 1Democracy 1
Represented passages

3 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Read & copy

“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

Henry David Thoreau
Meaning & context

Thoreau distinguishes legality from moral rightness, warning that habitual reverence for law can become dangerous when law and conscience point in opposing directions.

Source details

Civil Disobedience, first printed in 1849 as “Resistance to Civil Government”; represented Wikisource text. The surrounding paragraph asks whether citizens should resign conscience to legislators.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified2
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Read & copy

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

Henry David Thoreau
Meaning & context

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.

Source details

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.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified3
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Read & copy

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

Henry David Thoreau
Meaning & context

Thoreau argues that when imprisonment is used against people acting justly, accepting imprisonment can become a visible refusal to cooperate with the injustice of the state.

Source details

Civil Disobedience; represented Wikisource text. This sentence belongs to Thoreau’s abolitionist and antiwar case for noncooperation with an unjust government, not a context-free instruction for ordinary legal disputes.

↓ Download image (JPG)

More represented works

Continue through other sources by Henry David Thoreau

Walden1854 · 24 quotationsA Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers1849 · 3 quotationsLife Without Principle1863 · 3 quotations
The Journal of Henry David Thoreau — August 19, 18511851 · 1 quotation
Walking1862 · 1 quotation