"People are born free, but they are all bound by shackles" comes from the book The Social Contract by the French thinker Jean-Jean-jean-jacques rousseau. This sentence means that people are free in the natural state, but this freedom will be restricted by social rules, laws, morality and so on. Although these restrictions limit individual freedom, they also guarantee social order and public interests. Therefore, people need to seek a balance between freedom and restriction in order to maximize individual freedom and social interests.
Social Contract is one of the important works in the history of western political thought, which has a far-reaching influence on later political philosophy and social theory and is regarded as one of the theoretical cornerstones of modern democratic system.