Quotes on Disobedience

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

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

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.

. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose.

Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

I complained to Waki' about the weakness of my memorisation, _x000D_ _x000D_ So he instructed me to abandon disobedience;_x000D_ _x000D_ He informed me that knowledge is a light,_x000D_ _x000D_ And the light of Allah is not given to a sinner.

While I meditate on the gulf towards which I travelled, and reflect on my youthful disobedience, for these things I weep, mine eye runneth down with water.

Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

Would you really like to live in a society where you have no responsibility and no freedom, no choice, only the false option of obedience to the law, or disobedience followed by punishment? Would you really want to go live in a prison?

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.