Liberty (n.) cannot exist without will, but will can exist without liberty.
Liberty (n.) is the capacity to 'suspend' any 'particular' desire while one searches for happiness 'in general,' for the true good.
Liberty (n.) is no more hindered by being born under an ancient state with settled laws than by being born loose in the woods.
Liberty (n.) handed to someone without reason is no privilege: it thrusts him out among the brutes, into a state as wretched as theirs.
Liberty (n.) is not abridged but completed by being bound to our own best judgment; the further we drift from that, the nearer to slavery.
Liberty (n.) rests on a necessity: because we are bound to pursue true happiness, we are bound to pause and test every particular desire against it.
Liberty (n.) is not licence: you may dispose of your person and possessions as you please, but you may not destroy yourself.
Liberty (n.) is not a property of choosing but of doing: a man locked asleep in a room with the friend he longs for stays willingly, yet is not free to go.
Liberty (n.) if it meant breaking loose from the conduct of reason would make madmen and fools the only freemen, and nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty but he that is mad already.
Liberty (n.) is a power to act or not act as the mind directs; a man could not be free if his will were set by anything but his own desire, guided by his own judgment.