“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic

A Christmas Carol (1843)

Sometimes oddly paraphrased, "We forge the chains we wear in life."