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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.
Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers,
and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads;
and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as
likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.
A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the
great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences
also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and
they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will
only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay,"
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
