I love this line in John Milton’s essay "The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth," which is in Milton’s celebrated Areopagitica:
More just it is, doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain their liberty, than a greater number, for the pleasure of their own baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be their fellow slaves. [John Milton, Areopagitica [Liberty Fund edition, 1999; page 438. I modernized the spelling.]
