"Man enough to know its value"

And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips, to have questioned her, that she might have opened them, to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes and never raised a blush, to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price; in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

—from A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens

This, I think, is a goal worthy to be achieved, a profound secret to be understood and applied to many aspects of life: "to have the lightest license of a child, and yet be man enough to know its value."