Thinking about ...
...Freedom
because somebody posted a leaflet to the church about it
"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he
Whose father's father through long lives have reigned
O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained.
Though from his youth to age he roam as free
As winds, he dreams not freedom's ecstasy.
But he whose birth was in a nation chained
For centuries; where every breath was drained
From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be
Such thing as freedom, - he beholds the light
Burst, dazzling; though glory blind his sight
He knows the joy. Fools laugh because he reels
And wields confusedly his infant will;
The wise man watching with a heart that feels
Says: "Cure for freedom's harms is freedom still".
Helen Hunt Jackson 1830-1885
"Liberty, in so far as it is of any value, always means self-control"
Archbishop William Temple
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone:
and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it,
that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions ...
John Locke
Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room;
And Hermits are contented with their Cells;
And Students with their pensive Citadels;
Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom,
Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in Foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, into which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
William Wordsworth
"The world of reality has its limits;
the world of the imagination is boundless"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
No rack can torture me,
My soul's at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one
You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one and one will flee.
The eagle of his nest
No easier can divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest I.
Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So's liberty.
Emily Dickinson
Lord, you are the light of the minds that know you,
the life of the souls that love you,
and the strength of the souls that serve you.
Help us so to know you that we may truly love you,
so to love you that we may fully serve you,
whose service is perfect freedom.
