On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
()
About this ebook
Henry David Thoreau
Henry Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817, and attended Concord Academy and Harvard. After a short time spent as a teacher, he worked as a surveyor and a handyman, sometimes employed by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Between 1845 and 1847 Thoreau lived in a house he had made himself on Emerson's property near to Walden Pond. During this period he completed A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and wrote the first draft of Walden, the book that is generally judged to be his masterpiece. He died of tuberculosis in 1862, and much of his writing was published posthumously.
Read more from Henry David Thoreau
Civil Disobedience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Thoreau Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Existential Literature Collection Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Daily Henry David Thoreau: A Year of Quotes from the Man Who Lived in Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Enlightenment Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion Of Seeds And Other Late Natural History Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Disobedience and Other Essays (The Collected Essays of Henry David Thoreau) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essays: "This world is but a canvas to our imagination." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUncommon Learning: Henry David Thoreau on Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civil Disobedience and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civil Disobedience and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Without Principle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThoreau's Book of Quotations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelections from the Journals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers: "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Related ebooks
The Healing Properties of the Blues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Girl With The Navy Blue Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Impossible Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Matisse, Picasso And Getrude Stein: "If you can't say anything nice about anyone else, come sit next to me." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFloridoro: A Chivalric Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Hour - Volume 9: Time For The Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sailor's Return Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClock Dance: A Novel by Anne Tyler | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpider Speculations: A Physics and Biophysics of Storytelling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSan Francisco Stories: Gold, Cattle and Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYour Return to Freedom: A Practical Guide to Finding Lasting Inner Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirty Dishes: Memoirs of a Bawdy Chef Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEsophageal Cancer Survivor Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThese Poor Hands - The Autobiography of a Miner Working in South Wales Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Disabled Mothers: Stories and Scholarship By and About Mother with Disabilities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKeeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 189-193 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5...And the Diamonds Were Taken...: Female Genital Mutilation and Its Global Ramifications Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmglish: Two Nations Divided by a Common Language Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Hour - Volume 2: Time For The Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney to My Daughter: A Memoir about Adoption and Self-Discovery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChambermaid: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On the Journey: The Art of Living with Breast Cancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemoirs of Mrs. Seacole: The Autobiography of Britain's Greatest Black Heroine, Business Woman & Crimean War Nurse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Treasure of the Humble Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Bodies, Ourselves and the Work of Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShadow Sisters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mayer Matalon: Business, Politics and the Jewish-Jamaican Elite Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sisterhood of Diabetes: Facing Challenges & Living Dreams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Don't Owe You Pretty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
Disobedience
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau
1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Government
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. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
This American government,—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if