# Quote — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

> 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.

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

## More from this book

> 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)

> Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/statesmen-and-legislators.md)

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