May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.

Marshall contrasts a negative, permissive notion of liberty (“doing as we please”) with a moral, purposive one (“the opportunity to do what is right”). The line reflects a mid‑20th‑century Protestant civic rhetoric in which freedom is inseparable from conscience, duty, and self-restraint—an idea meant to guard against equating democracy with mere license. Read this way, freedom is not simply the absence of constraint but the presence of conditions (moral formation, social order, and responsibility) that enable right action. The quote’s enduring appeal lies in its succinct reframing of liberty as ethical agency rather than personal indulgence.