HKB
2 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: crime and punishment · taxation, tribute, and revenue · strength of conscience · state punishment of the body · rights and liberties · natural law and higher law · imprisonment · higher law versus government force · higher law over government · equity, mercy, and pardon · county jail imprisonment
Usually: exhortation (2) · narrative (1) · reflection (1) · captivity (1) · confronting death (1) · censure (1) · skepticism (1)
“Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses.” Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience · observation
“When I meet a government which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my money?” Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience · insight
“They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men.” Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience · insight
“Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience · insight
He reports paying no poll tax for six years, being jailed briefly for it, and describing how the State tries to punish his body rather than his conscience, urging appeal to a higher law over mere physical force.
I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find such a complete list. I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could …
Thoreau reports six years without paying the poll tax, his brief jail imprisonment, and his belief that the state can only coerce bodies, not higher conscience or intellectual freedom.
I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find such a complete list. I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could …