# Quote — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

> The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union,(1) to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves — the union between themselves and the State — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union, which have prevented them from resisting the State?

- 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)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/the-broadest-and

## 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)