Freedom

You must understand that you cannot begin with freedom—freedom is the goal, the aim. People say that God created man free. That is a great misunderstanding. Freedom cannot be given to anyone—even by our all-loving Creator Himself. God has given to man the biggest thing he can—that is the possibility to become free. The desire for freedom exists in every man worthy of the name—but people are stupid and think they can have outward freedom without inner freedom. All our evil comes from this stupidity. Unless we desire, first of all, to be free from our own inner enemies, we shall only go from bad to worse.

—Gheorgiy Gurdjieff