A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Friction Go Government Injustice Let It Go Machine Necessary Part Smooth Wear Will

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

f the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth - certainly the machine will wear out... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Henry David Thoreau

If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

Henry David Thoreau

Hamlet at 70: "To sleep, perchance to dream. To awaken, perchance to go to the bathroom."

Robert Breault

If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever.

William S. Burroughs

Since I'm always on the go, I think it's necessary to have basic strappy sandals that go seamlessly with everything you wear.

Masaba Gupta

The Federal Government is rendered weak to do wrong, and powerful to do right: for, as soon as it begins to go wrong, it naturally begins to be divided against itself, and the three great wheels of its machinery exhaust their momentum, or wear each other out, in their friction against each other; while, as soon as it begins to go right, all the parts work harmoniously, and exhaust their full strength on the object of their action.

William Batchelder Greene

When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

P. J. O'Rourke

We need an equal opportunity society, one in which government does not see its job as picking winners and losers. Where do you go if you want special favors? Government. Where do you go if you want a tax break? Government. Where do you go if you want a handout? Government. This must stop.

Bobby Jindal

A machine is a great moral educator. If a horse or a donkey won’t go, men lose their tempers and beat it; if a machine won’t go, there is no use beating it. You have to think and try till you find what is wrong. That is real education.

Gilbert Murray

Every government secretary of state or minister should jolly well go to the theatre, go to a concert, go to an art gallery, go to a museum, become somehow interested in these things. If they're not interested, they shouldn't be in government, full stop.

Philip Pullman

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.

Henry David Thoreau

Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else's business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running of the entire machine.

Eleanor Roosevelt

We're very specific when we're drawing work plans. We think about the chances of when a person gets off the elevator where they will go. We think about how people get to a coffee machine, when they go and get their lunch, when they go to the bathroom.

Miguel McKelvey

Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humilation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler.