# Quote — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

> When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

- 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/Henry_David_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), [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [justice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-david-thoreau/civil-disobedience/when-a-sixth

## 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)