It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own.
Interpretation
Sacrificing others' freedom undermines your own autonomy.
James Otis suggests that individuals who willingly trade away the freedom of others may eventually become indifferent to their own liberation. This reflects a deeper philosophical idea that the respect for personal liberty should be universal, as violating the rights of others can lead to a collective deterioration of freedom.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of protecting freedoms for all.
I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor.
There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.
I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.
If we are not represented, we are slaves.
Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house.
An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.
I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness.
Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.
The practice of altruism is the authentic way to live as a human being, and it is not just for religious people. As human beings, our purpose is to live meaningful lives, to develop a warm heart. There is meaning in being everyone's friend. The real source of peace amongst our families, friends and neighbours is love and compassion.
Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic un-interestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead?
Superficial people are those who simply go along without a question in the world-asking nothing, troubled by nothing, examining nothing. Whatever people around them do, they do, too. That's a sad and plastic life-routine and comfortable, maybe, but still sad.
At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action.
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