Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. – Chinese Proverb
No radical change on the plane of history is possible without crime. – Hermann Keyserling
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. – Voltaire
Integrity has no need of rules. – Albert Camus
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. – Louis D. Brandeis
Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices. – George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience. – Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays, 1911
I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. – Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. – Clarence Darrow
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. – Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation, 1775
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. – Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
