On the failure to act

"I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name - if ten honest men only - ay, if one HONEST man, in this state of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership [with the government] and be locked up in the county jail therefore, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done forever. But we love better to talk about it..."

HENRY DAVID THOREAU