“Cleverly assorted scraps of spurious science are inculcated upon the children to prove necessity of law; obedience to the law is made a religion; moral goodness and the law of the masters are fused into one and the same divinity. The historical hero of the schoolroom is the man who obeys the law, and defends it against rebels.”

Source: Law and Authority (1886), I

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Cleverly assorted scraps of spurious science are inculcated upon the children to prove necessity of law; obedience to t…" by Peter Kropotkin?
Peter Kropotkin photo
Peter Kropotkin 141
Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scie… 1842–1921

Related quotes

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. photo
Leonid Feodorov photo

“If the Soviet Government orders me to act against my conscience, I do not obey. As for teaching the Catechism, the Catholic Church holds that children must be taught their religion, no matter what the law says. Conscience is above the law. No law which is against the conscience can bind.”

Leonid Feodorov (1879–1935) Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church

Captain Francis McCullagh, "The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity," Dutton and Company, 1924, page 192.
Adressing the court during his political show trial in 1923.

Thomas Carlyle photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

“The law, the primal law, the moral absolute, the divine command is the preservation of one's own kind.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen

Stephen Robson photo
James Wilson photo

“Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”

James Wilson (1742–1798) one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independe…

as quoted in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 106 & 103-105.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Third State of the Union Address (7 December 1903)
1900s

William Greenough Thayer Shedd photo

Related topics