The year was 1849. 

The philosopher Henry David Thoreau was in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax to protest the Mexican-American war and slavery.  

Reflecting on his night in jail, Thoreau wrote an essay titled “Civil Disobedience” 

Here are 12 quotes from this essay that capture its essence:  

1 “This American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity?” 

… “Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.”  

2 “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”  

3 “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscious.”  

4 “A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of heart…. Now, what are they? Men at all? Or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?” 

5 “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies…In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.” 

6 “There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them.”

7 “Unjust laws exists: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” 

8 “But if it is of such nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law.” 

9 “Is there not a sort of bloodshed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.” 

10 “Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.” 

11 “If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.” 

12 “The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.”