Joseph Wood Krutch Quotes

Over and over again, people had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience. This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has, over and over again, happened throughout history. It is time again to cry out against our 'leaders,' to question (since it is not for us to say that they are evil) whether or not they are sane.

I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience... If I had my time over I would do the same again. So would any man who dares call himself a man.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

You can't disobey the rules every time you disapprove. However, when you're considering something that constitutes an extreme abridgement of your rights, conscience is the court of last resort.

Sometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law. And the key there is in terms of civil disobedience. You have to make sure that what you're risking, what you're bringing onto yourself, does not serve as a detriment to anyone else. It doesn't hurt anybody else.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

I don't care if I end up in jail or Guantánamo or whatever, kicked out of a plane with two gunshots in the face. I did what I did because I believe it is the right thing to do, and I will continue to do that.

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.

Maybe I'll learn how, but the only thing I can do is turn down parts that would hurt my conscience.

If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist

There is no justice in following unjust laws.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

Civil disobedience is the core of American defiance against kings and emperors.

All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.

Forget the laws. If the laws don't make sense, if they run contrary to your conscience, you have to disobey them.

In order to be true to one's conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.

Always stand by form against force.

The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.