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  • Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; but the denial stays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

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