Liberty.

(Dulce et decorum est pro sibi vivere.)

Liberty! We are mad for liberty.

How it plays with our emotions,

primes us for manipulation.

The merest suggestion of a struggle

in its name and we are at once undone.

It swells the heart and fills the eyes

and, behold, we are abruptly wrecked.

But, however outward seems the cause,

it is our own fight we espouse,

our own victory for which we yearn,

the limits to our own freedom we abhor,

the slights to our own dignity that offend.

It is our own enemies we wish to slay,

our own tyrants we long to overthrow.

All wider crusades are clearly substitutes.

Liberty! All liberty is personal.

Rising in sympathy with others,

we escape our own internal ignominy,

being too cowardly, or just too late,

to wage war for our own grievances,

to mount our own barricade,

to sound our own battle cry:

'It is sweet and proper to live for self!'