Freedom is not a thing you can receive as a gift. One can be free even under a dictatorship on one simple condition, that is, if one struggles against it. A man who thinks with his own mind and remains uncorrupted is a free man. A man who struggles for what he believes to be right is a free man. On the other hand, you can live in the most democratic society in the world, and if you are lazy, callous and submissive at heart, you are not free; in spite of the absence of violent coercion, you are a slave. This is the source of affliction: Freedom is not a thing that must be begged from others. You must take it for yourself -  whatever share you are capable of taking.