None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence.
Interpretation
True love for freedom is rooted in moral integrity, whereas others may only desire unrestricted behavior.
John Milton suggests that genuine love for freedom comes from a place of goodness and moral character. Those who are not good men may mistake their desire for license and untethered choices as a form of freedom, but this is a shallow understanding that lacks true ethical foundations.
In practice
In a lecture about ethics and freedom, this quote can illustrate the difference between genuine liberty and the reckless pursuit of freedom without moral consideration.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.
The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.
Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.
What would it be like if I had something to defend - a home, a country, a family - and I found myself attacked by these ghostly men, these trusting boys? How do you fight an enemy who fights with neither enmity nor anger but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and without conscience?
Man has been driven out of the paradise in which he could trust his instincts.
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.
But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.
I guess cause i'm black boy, I'm supposed to say 'peace', sing songs, and get capped on.
In the end, one or the other will triumph - a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet republic or over world capitalism.
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