Q.Do only great men and women fight for great principles like freedom? What does this principle mean to me?

Fighting for freedom does not require fame — it only requires the willingness to resist domination, and this happens at every level of society, not only among well-known historical figures.

Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi are extraordinary, widely known examples of people who gave up years of their own lives for the ideal of freedom, and their stories rightly stand out because of the scale of what they sacrificed and achieved. But the underlying principle they were fighting for — the desire to be in control of one's own life and choices, free from domination — is not something only 'great' people experience or act on. Ordinary people resist unjust constraints constantly, at a much smaller and more local scale: someone who refuses to accept an unjust social custom, a worker who organises for fair treatment, or a young person who insists on their own choice of education, career or marriage partner despite social pressure, is engaged in the very same kind of struggle, even if it never becomes historically famous.

What this principle means to any individual is necessarily personal, but grounded in the chapter's own definition of freedom: it can mean the ability to make one's own decisions — about what to study, what to believe, who to be friends with, and what future to pursue — without being coerced by family, community or authority, while recognising that this same freedom belongs equally to everyone else, and so comes together with the responsibility to respect others' freedom in turn.