Selections from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Thought is like the inflowing stream, and speech therefrom is like the basin. In a word, influx adapts itself to efflux, and in like manner the understanding from above adapts itself to its measure of freedom to speak and publish its thoughts.[Free nations], as regards the spiritual things of the church called theological, are like eagles which rise to whatever height they please; while nations that are not free are like swans in a river.
Again, free nations are like the larger deer with lofty horns, that roam the fields, groves, and forests at perfect liberty; while nations that are not free are like the deer kept in parks to please a prince.
And still again, free peoples are like the winged horse which the ancients called Pegasus, that flew not only over the seas, but over the so called Parnassian hills, and also over the hills of the Muses beneath them; while a people not freed are like noble horses handsomely caparisoned in kings' stables. There are like differences in their judgments regarding the mysterious matters of theology.
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such as the state of man's mind is in the natural world, such it is in the spiritual world; for man's mind is his spirit, or the posthumous man that lives after his departure from the material body.(from True Christian Religion 814-816)