Free Speech Quotes - Page 13

• Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster. It's like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we'll be going backward.

  Ai Weiwei

  Ocean, Mountain, Dignity

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• After [Bill Shawn] was fired, I was going to the YMHA [Young Men's Hebrew Association] on the Upper East Side to do a talk on free speech.I went into a coffee shop to get a piece of pie and a coffee, and I was reading a paper and I hear a voice. And it was -it was not a voice I was familiar with, but I looked across the table and I saw Lilian Ross.And sitting next to her was William Shawn - no tie, needed a shave. His voice was kind of coarse and rather loud. He wasn't drunk, but I was just stunned.

  Nat Hentoff

  Reading, Coffee, Men

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• As entertainers, you're afraid [about] loss of income - but if other people start going to jail for free speech, then we've lost this great thing that America is, and I'd like to keep that.

  Killer Mike

  Loss, America, Jail

  Source: www.billboard.com

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• Look at what's happening on campuses for free speech. They're literally, literally limiting what people can say, under the guise of preventing people from getting hurt feelings. They are limiting constitutionally protected speech to save people from being offended or hurt. And so, denying people freedom is portrayed as a wonderful thing. That's how the left seduce people.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Hurt, People, Feelings

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• The state says: "Well, in order for it to be legitimate civil disobedience, you have to follow these rules." They put us in "free-speech zones"; they say you can only do it at this time, and in this way, and you can't interrupt the functioning of the government. They limit the impact that civil disobedience can achieve. We have to remember that civil disobedience must be disobedience if it's to be effective.

  Edward Snowden

  Impact, Government, Order

  Source: www.thenation.com

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• A well-functioning democracy has a culture of free speech, not simply legal protection of free speech. It encourages independence of mind. It imparts a willingness to challenge prevailing opinion through both words and deeds. Equally important, it encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers.

  Cass Sunstein

  Attitude, Democracies Have, Giving

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• Now, after I have published a few books, I can clearly feel the impact of censorship when I write. For example, I'll think of a sentence, and then realize that it will for sure get deleted. Then I won't even write it down.

  Murong Xuecun

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• The person who has the strong ownership of free speech is the one who owns the press.

  Nat Hentoff

  Strong, Speech, Ownership

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• If pornographers are among the early adopters of the new technology, then it has definite commercial possibilities.

  Tim Jackson

  Technology, Internet, Possibility

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• I am broadly concerned about the slow death of free speech, but particularly in universities and also with regards to the climate change debate.

  Judith Curry

  Climate, Speech, Debate

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• All I care about is free speech and free expression; I want people to be able to be, do, and say anything.

  Milo Yiannopoulos

  Expression, People, Say Anything

  "Where Was Everyone Years Ago When Milo Yiannopoulos Was Making These "Jokes"?" by Sady Doyle, www.elle.com. February 22, 2017.

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• Our Supreme Court has lifted the practice of buying legislation to the level of a constitutional principle by repeatedly protecting corporate spending for and against political candidates, as well as promises and threats of such spending to bribe and blackmail such candidates, by appeal to the free-speech clause of the First Amendment.

  Thomas Pogge

  Practice, Political, Promise

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Cumulatively, American society is sliding toward a new form of 'authoritarian democracy'. Elections continue, free speech is generally protected, institutions operate in accordance with the Constitution, but the reality of state - society relations is dramatically altered by the counter-terrorist claims of emergency rule and the right of exception.

  Richard A. Falk

  Reality, Democracy, Speech

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Our legislators have become a set of "whores" open to the highest bidders. The problem is that if we try to limit lobbying, we are in effect limiting free speech.

  Philip Kotler

  Trying, Lobbying, Speech

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

  Salman Rushdie

  People, Speech, Argument

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It's also for people who you think of as reprehensible.

  Salman Rushdie

  Thinking, People, Speech

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• People can do bad things with free speech as well as good. You have to defend the Ku Klux Klan as well as Martin Luther King. It's like that. If you're going to defend the principle, then you have to defend people who use the principle badly.

  Salman Rushdie

  Kings, Ku Klux Klan, People

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• We are very frustrated because we have a Supreme Court that seems determined to say that the wealthier have more right to free speech than the rest of us. For example, they say you couldn't stop me from spending all the money I've saved over the last five years on Hillary's campaign if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign finance reform.

  William J. Clinton

  Years, Frustrated, Example

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• Then President [Barack] Obama went on to argue that a citizen`s Second Amendment rights can be restricted without being infringed, just like any other rights. There are limits on your free speech and on your right to privacy. But he also made another nuanced Constitutional argument, that the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment must be balanced alongside the others rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Rights, Second Amendment, President

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• If money is free speech, the big interests are sitting in front with megaphones and the average citizens are sitting in the back.

  John McCain

  Average, Citizens, Sitting

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• Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

  Noam Chomsky

  Giving, Speech, Our Society

  "Chomsky on McCutcheon: ‘Let’s Forget Any Pretense of Being a Democratic Society’" by Abel Collins, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 27, 2014.

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• I know a whole generation has been raised on the notion of multiculturalism; that all civilizations are just different. No! Not always. Sometimes things are better! Rule of law is better than autocracy and theocracy; equality of the sexes, better; protection of minorities, better; free speech, better; free elections, better; free appliances with large purchases, better! Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.

  Bill Maher

  Sex, Law, Civilization

  "Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home". Documentary, Comedy, 2003.

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• I believe America went wrong in terms of respecting the First Amendment, the state of free speech on American college campuses and on the media and in academia.

  Milo Yiannopoulos

  Believe, College, Media

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant venomous things that are said but, on the whole, we would rather lump them than do away with them.

  Winston Churchill

  Evil, Speech, Foolish

  Sir Winston Churchill, Jack Fishman (1974). “If I lived my life again”, W.H. Allen

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• Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Speech, Serious, Injury

  Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 1927.

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