Free Speech Quotes - Page 2

• Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Fear, Men, Religion

  "Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376". Concurring opinion, 1927.

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  If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

  John Stuart Mill

  Freedom, Philosophy, Differences

  On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

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• We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech - because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth.

  Barack Obama

  Lying, Freedom Of Speech, Ends

  President Barack Obama's remarks to the People of Estonia at the Nordea Concert Hall in Tallinn, Estonia, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 3, 2014.

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• Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Freedom, Mean, Technology

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• The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Loyalty, Country, Freedom

  "Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466". Dissenting opinion, 1920.

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• Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

  Herbert Hoover

  Freedom, Speech, Doe

  Herbert Hoover (1929). “The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover, 1928”, p.162, Stanford University Press

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• Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Freedom Of Speech, Liberty, Bedrock

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2011). “Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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• The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Motivational, Life And Love, Freedom

  Speech to National Student Association at Madison, 23 Aug. 1965, in New York Times 24 Aug. 1965, p. 12

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• I hate to do anything that is going to stop or suppress free speech.

  Donald Trump

  Hate, Speech, I Hate

  Source: www.economist.com

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• For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.

  George Washington

  Taken, Men, Sheep

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1835). “Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.562

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• If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Education, Time, Evil

  Whitney v. California (concurring opinion) (1927) See OliverWendell Holmes, Jr. 29

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• One man's blasphemy doesn't override other people's free-speech rights, their freedom to publish, freedom of thought.

  Dan Savage

  Men, Rights, People

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• The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

  John Stuart Mill

  Opportunity, Errors, Race

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  James Madison

  Exercise, Secular Society, Law

  Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

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• You must stand for free speech in the streets.

  Mother Jones

  Speech, Streets

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• First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Thinking, Government, Law

  Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 2002.

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• I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned.

  Lucy Stone

  Gratitude, Women, Thinking

  "The Progress of Fifty Years". Speech at the Congress of Women at the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair), Chicago, Illinois, digital.library.upenn.edu. 1893.

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• The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Ignorance, Race, People

  Charles Bradlaugh's speech at Hall of Science (circa 1880), as quoted in Annie Besant "Annie Besant: An Autobiography", 1893.

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• When the public's right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered.

  Christopher Dodd

  Rights, Risk, Liberty

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• It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.

  Stephen Fry

  People, Freedom Of Speech, Comedian

  "I saw hate in a graveyard - Stephen Fry" by David Smith, www.theguardian.com. June 5, 2005.

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• The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language. Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way.

  Jimmy Wales

  Beer, People, Giving

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• I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology, to purchase and use recreational drugs, to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices', to be free of intruders, and to privacy.

  Bram Cohen

  Technology, Rights, Political

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• Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature.

  Adrian Cronauer

  Worry, Flags, Fundamentals

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• The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship.

  Joichi Ito

  Believe, Ideas, Rights

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• There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans ... and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Ocean, Men, Wind

  Henry Ward Beecher (1866). “Royal truths”, p.131

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