# Quote — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

> I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. 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. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to have this way or that by masses of men.

- Author: [Henry David Thoreau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau.md)
- Book: [Civil Disobedience](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)#Civil_Disobedience_(1849)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/i-saw-that-the

## More from this book

> If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/if-a-man.md)

Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md)

> The lawyer's truth is not truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/the-lawyers-truth.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md)

> The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/the-authority-of-government.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md)