I call that man free who is able to rule himself. I call him free who
has his flesh in subjection to his spirit; who fears doing wrong, but
who fears nothing else.

I call that man free who has learned that liberty consists in obedience
to the power and to the will and to the law that his higher soul
approves. He is not free because he does what he likes, but he is free
because he does what he ought.

Some people think there is no liberty in obedience. I tell you there
is no liberty except in loyal obedience. Did you ever see a mother
kept at home, a kind of prisoner, by her sick child, obeying its every
wish and caprice? Will you call that mother a slave? Or is this
obedience the obedience of slavery? I call it the obedience of the
highest liberty--the liberty of love.

We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights: the rights of
private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights, of property, and the
rights of man.

I cannot see anything manly in the struggle between rich and poor; the
one striving to take as much, and the other to keep as much, as he can.
The cry of "My rights, your duties," we should change to something
nobler. If we can say "My duties, your rights," we shall learn what
real liberty is.