Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience Quotes

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.