“If it’s freedom you seek, then wish nothing and shun nothing that depends on others, or you will always be a helpless slave.”

“What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. ”

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. . .To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“You have a power of incalculable value. You need ask nothing of anyone. You need depend on no one. You are free, and that freedom is a gift.”

“It’s like looking into a full-length mirror and seeing nothing but pure beauty in the reflection…and then watching helplessly as it shatters into a thousand pieces before your eyes, knowing that you can do nothing to keep it from breaking…”