Quotes on Civil Disobedience

Life Quotes on Civil Disobedience

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. ~Albert Einstein

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

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

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

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. ~Malcolm X


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. ~Erich Fromm

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. ~Mark Twain

Integrity has no need of rules. ~Albert Camus

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. ~Louis D. Brandeis

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. ~John J. Miller



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

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

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” ~Martin Luther King

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. ~Alexander Bickel

It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience. ~Lemuel K. Washburn

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. ~Henry David Thoreau