Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage._x000D_ Minds innocent and quiet take that for a hermitage:_x000D_ If I have freedom in my love, and in my Soul I am free,_x000D_ Angels alone, that soar above, enjoy such liberty.
Interpretation
True freedom comes from within and is not confined by physical barriers.
This quote by Richard Lovelace suggests that physical constraints, such as walls or bars, do not define one's state of freedom. It emphasizes that true liberty is found in the purity and tranquility of the mind and soul, suggesting that a peaceful and loving spirit can transcend any external limitations.
In practice
This quote can be cited in a discussion about mental health and the importance of inner peace.
It is an item of faith that we are children of God; there is plenty of experience in us against it. The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness: It is a fatal mistake to think of holiness as a possession which we have distinct from our faith... Faith is the very highest form of our dependence on God.
I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Honor more.
You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.
The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself, for a certain space of time, in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge, in order to know better the goodness of God towards her.
Too much freedom can lead to the soul's decay.
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
The greatest good that can come to anyone is forming within them an absolute certainty of themselves, and of their relationship to the Universe, forever removing the sense of heaven as being outside of them.
It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.
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