1 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: treaties, truces, and peacemaking · equity, mercy, and pardon · crime and punishment · counter-friction against government · constitution as evil · break unjust laws
Usually: argument (1) · injustice endured (1) · exhortation (1) · skepticism (1)
“Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience · precept
He argues that unjust laws should be broken immediately when reform via persuasion fails, since the government worsens the remedy, and urges life to act as counter-friction to stop the injustice machine.
not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divided states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the *individual*, separating the diabolical in him from the divine. Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they …