Free Expression Quotes

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  What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

  Salman Rushdie

  Honesty, Integrity, Expression

  Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Freedom, Hate, Attachment

  United States v. Schwimmer (dissenting opinion) (1929)

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• I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Inspirational, Graduation, Dream

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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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• Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.

  William O. Douglas

  Winning, Expression, Community

  "Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. June 24, 1957.

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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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  Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

  Winston Churchill

  Business, Humorous, Hypocrite

  Winston Churchill (1952). “War Speeches: From September 11, 1943 to August 16, 1945”

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• If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Printed Books, Printed Word, Offending

  Benjamin Franklin (1945). “Autobiographical writings”

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• Freedom demands that we struggle for an extension of both equality and free expression, not regard one as inimical to the other.

  Kenan Malik

  Struggle, Expression, Demand

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• It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.

  William O. Douglas

  Attitude, Fate, Expression

  "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

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• The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.

  Earl Warren

  Heart, Expression, Censorship

  Dissent in Times Film Corp. v. City of Chicago 365 U.S. 43, 1961.

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• The will of the entire people is the true basis of republican government, and a free expression . . . by the public vote of all citizens, without distinctions of race, color, occupation, or sex, is the only means by which that will can be ascertained.

  Victoria Woodhull

  Sex, Mean, Race

  Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1974). “The Victoria Woodhull Reader”, Weston, Mass. : M&S Press

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• You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive.

  William Allen White

  Wise, Wisdom, Expression

  William Allen White (1937). “Forty Years on Main Street”

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• In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression-that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one serves the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, and repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom.

  Jack Kornfield

  Mean, Expression, Mind

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• The ideas of individual supremacy and the right of free expression, when carried to excess, have not worked. They have made it difficult to keep America society cohesive. Asia can see it is not working.. In America itself, there is widespread crime and violence, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Integrity, Fall, Character

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• Nowadays the big Hollywood studios only make about three movies a year, and they cost about $200 million each. There's no room for error in that, and not a lot of room, I would think, for free expression.

  Robbie Coltraine

  Thinking, Errors, Expression

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• But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago.

  John McCain

  Believe, Expression, Long

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• No, nothing is sacred. And even if there were to be something called sacred, we mere primates wouldn't be able to decide which book or which idol or which city was the truly holy one. Thus, the only thing that should be upheld at all costs and without qualification is the right of free expression, because if that goes, then so do all other claims of right as well.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Book, Expression, Idols

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• This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views. We value life; the terrorists ruthlessly destroy it. We value education; the terrorists do not believe women should be educated or should have health care, or should leave their homes. We value the right to speak our minds; for the terrorists, free expression can be grounds for execution. We respect people of all faiths and welcome the free practice of religion; our enemy wants to dictate how to think and how to worship even to their fellow Muslims.

  George W. Bush

  Inspiration, Believe, Home

  Speech in Atlanta, www.cnn.com. November 08, 2001.

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• The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

  Emma Goldman

  Peace, Expression, People

  Emma Goldman (2013). “Living My Life”, p.210, Courier Corporation

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• [Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone.

  John Stott

  Christian, Rights, Views

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• He said he "admired our courage" but didn't want to see us do anything to "damage our promising futures." He felt "proud as an American" that we had "exercised our right to peaceful free expression." But if we did it again, he didn't "know what action the state board of education might take against individual students." Translation: You've had your fun. Now sit down, shut up, and take the freakin' test. Or else.

  Jordan Sonnenblick

  Fun, Expression, Peaceful

  "After Ever After". Book by Jordan Sonnenblick, 2012.

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• The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beauty, Country, Art

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1653, Delphi Classics

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• Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.

  Liu Xiaobo

  Mother, Truth, Freedom

  "Liu Xiaobo: 'No Enemies, No Hatred,' Only Courage". Statement prepared for court, www.npr.org. February 16, 2012.

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• The free expression of opinion, as experience has taught us, is the safety-valve of passion. The noise of the rushing steam, when it escapes, alarms the timid; but it is the sign that we are safe. The concession of reasonable privilege anticipates the growth of furious-appetite.

  Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone

  Passion, Expression, Taught Us

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