The cost of freedom

What is the cost of freedom? Perhaps John Philpot Curran said it best:

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
-John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)

Since 9/11, this has run around the periphery of my conscience, I knew this quote and had forgotten it. I stumbled across it today while googling something completely unrelated. Eternal Vigilance. Every moral human's duty. Don't look away, don't stand for oppression of the weak of mind or body. An eternal burden.