It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much

The words of Henry David Thoreau—“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right”—fall upon the heart like a call from the mountains, stern yet liberating. In them we hear the eternal tension between what is written by the hands of men and what is inscribed by the hand of truth. For law, though powerful, is but a vessel; it can be bent by rulers, corrupted by greed, and twisted to preserve injustice. But right—that higher order of justice, conscience, and morality—is eternal. To honor law above right is to serve the shadow instead of the light; but to honor right above law is to walk the path of the noble.

Thoreau himself lived these words in the mid-19th century, when America was poisoned by slavery. The law permitted men to own other men, to chain them like beasts and sell them like cattle. The law demanded that runaway slaves be returned to their masters. Yet Thoreau declared such laws unworthy of obedience, for they warred against the deeper truth of human dignity. His essay Civil Disobedience arose from this conviction: that when law betrays right, it loses its claim to our allegiance. Better to obey conscience and bear punishment, than to betray truth for the sake of order.

History offers us powerful witnesses to this teaching. Consider the example of the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War. The officers of tyranny claimed they had merely followed the law, obeyed orders, and fulfilled their duties. Yet the world judged otherwise. The tribunal declared that men are not absolved by the laws of their state when those laws command them to trample the rights of humanity. Thus, right stood higher than law, and justice demanded that even the guardians of a wicked order be held accountable. Here, the wisdom of Thoreau found its vindication.

The ancients, too, spoke of this. Antigone, in the tragedy of Sophocles, defied the king’s decree forbidding the burial of her brother. She declared that his law was mortal, but the unwritten laws of the gods—the right of reverence, love, and justice—were eternal. For her defiance she suffered death, but her story has lived for millennia, reminding each generation that to obey law against right is to lose one’s soul.

Yet Thoreau’s words are not a call to anarchy, but to higher responsibility. He does not despise law; he despises blind obedience to it. Law is useful and necessary, but it must be continually measured against right, continually purified by conscience. Otherwise, it becomes a cage instead of a safeguard, a chain instead of a guide. True respect is owed not to the letter of statutes, but to the spirit of justice they are meant to serve.

The lesson for us is this: live not as mere subjects of laws, but as servants of justice. Question the laws of your time. Do they honor dignity, protect the weak, preserve freedom? Or do they serve the powerful at the expense of truth? If the former, uphold them with strength; if the latter, resist them with courage. For obedience without conscience is cowardice, but disobedience for the sake of right is the seed of true progress.

Therefore, let each of us cultivate within our hearts not mere respect for law, but reverence for right. Let conscience be the compass, truth the guide, and courage the staff upon which we lean. In this way, we shall not be slaves to the decrees of men, but free citizens of justice itself. Thoreau’s voice, rising from the forests of Concord, calls us still: Do not live by the law alone. Live by the right—and in doing so, you will live in the light of what is eternal.