People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

The line frames liberty not as a gift granted by constitutions or rulers, but as a capacity people must actively claim. “Intelligence” suggests the ability to recognize oppression, imagine alternatives, and understand what freedom would concretely require; “courage” points to the willingness to risk comfort, reputation, or safety to secure it. The aphorism also implies that formal rights can remain hollow if a populace is habituated to obedience or lacks the confidence to exercise them. In a Goldman-like register, liberty is inseparable from self-emancipation: social change depends on awakened consciousness and bold action rather than passive reliance on institutions.