There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.
Interpretation
True freedom entails responsibility and cannot be achieved without embracing its challenges.
In this quote, Thomas Babington Macaulay suggests that the challenges and problems that arise from attaining new freedom cannot be solved by restricting that freedom. Instead, true freedom itself is the solution to the potential evils associated with it, highlighting the importance of embracing freedom in all its complexities and taking responsibility for its consequences.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of embracing freedom despite its challenges.
To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.
People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.
Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may decieve you - you decide what's good. You decide alone, but no one is alone. People make mistakes. Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes, holding to their own, thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes. Fight for their mistakes. Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what's right. You decide what's good.
From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.
How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.
My feeling is that the hero has now been defined by phrases like the odious one that we were all raised with - crimes does not pay. Of course it pays, you schmuck. That's not why we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong.
Disciples of Jesus Christ understand that compared to eternity, our existence in this mortal sphere is only “a small moment” in space and time. They know that a person’s true value has little to do with what the world holds in high esteem. They know you could pile up the accumulated currency of the entire world and it could not buy a loaf of bread in the economy of heaven.
To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.
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