由Henry David Thoreau（1848年）改编自“公民不服从”

我由衷地接受这句格言:“治理得最少的政府才是最好的政府”;我希望它能更迅速、更有系统地付诸实施。如果执行的话，它最终就等于这一点，我也相信这一点，那就是:“不管理的政府是最好的政府”;当人们对此有所准备时，他们将拥有这样的政府。政府充其量不过是权宜之计;但大多数政府通常，甚至所有政府有时都是无能的。反对常备军的意见很多，很有分量，理应占上风，但最终也可能会反对一个常备军政府。常备军只是常备军政府的一个分支。政府本身，只是人们选择来执行他们的意志的方式，在人们能够通过它行动之前，同样有可能被滥用和扭曲。看看现在的墨西哥战争，相对少数的人利用常设政府作为他们的工具; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

但是，实际地说，作为一个公民，我不像那些自称为无政府者的人，我要求的不是立即没有政府，而是立即有一个更好的政府。让每个人都知道什么样的政府会赢得他的尊重，这将是迈向它的一步。