The highest manifestation of ...

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.
The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.
 Thomas Aquinas

More phrases

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
 Thích Nhất Hạnh
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Quotes from the same author

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
 Thomas Aquinas
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
 Thomas Aquinas
A person is disposed to an act of choice by an angel ... in two ways. Sometimes, a man's understanding is enlightened by an angel to know what is good, but it is not instructed as to the reason why ... But sometimes he is instructed by angelic illumination, both that this act is good and as to the reason why it is good.
 Thomas Aquinas
A man does not always choose what his guardian angel intends.
 Thomas Aquinas
Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil.
 Thomas Aquinas