John Milton Quotes on Freedom
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Areopagitica (1644)
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None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.
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No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.
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For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.
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License they mean when they cry, Liberty! For who loves that must first be wise and good.
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The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.
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Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free.
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Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony.