Which line from "civil disobedience" by henry david thoreau may have influenced john lewis's beliefs? i think sometimes, why, this people mean well; they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? it was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, "how do ye do? " i have never declined paying the highway tax, because i am as desirous of being a good neighbor as i am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, i am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. if others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the state, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the state requires. i asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, i believe he was.