Freedom

It is a mistake to suppose that all men want to be free. On the contrary, if freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it. They would happily exchange their liberty for a modest (if illusory) security. Even those who claim to cherish their freedom are rather less enthusiastic about taking the consequences of their actions. The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong. Implicitly they disagree with Bacon's famous dictum that "chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands." Instead they experience themselves as putty in the hands of fate. —Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom