Free Speech Quotes - Page 15

• For the first 200 years of our nation's history, corporations were never defined by the courts as persons with free speech rights under the First Amendment.  Only in recent years have we witnessed this corporate takeover of our First Amendment, culminating in the Citizens United ruling.

  John Bonifaz

  Rights, Years, Citizens United

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• Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.

  Richard Dawkins

  Sex, Philosophy, Rights

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• We [in USA] have people honestly believing that, if a president calls a war, you have to shut up and sing. That is not the nation my mother raised me to pledge my allegiance to. We should speak out. We sent thousands of Americans to foreign battlefields to protect our way of life, which includes free speech. If you're not going to use it, it's already lost. We'll find a Mussolini who will tell us what's good for us.

  Phil Donahue

  Mother, War, Believe

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Everyone asks for freedom for himself,
  The man free love, the businessman free trade,
  The writer and talker free speech and free press.

  Robert Frost

  Freedom, Men, Speech

  Robert Frost (1936). “A Further Range”

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• Constant conflict is actually often good politics. Because the more you can inflame your supporters the more likely they are to show up at election day. And if they're more inflamed than the other side, even if the other side has more people agreeing with it, you'll win, because your crowd will show up.

  William J. Clinton

  Party, Winning, Reality

  "Bill Clinton on shutdown: 'politics is not theology'". William J. Clinton's speech at a convention of the National Community Pharmacists Association in Orlando, politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com. October 14, 2013.

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• I understand that unless you have a government of laws, rather than a government of people, you cannot protect dissent. And I understand, as a woman who probably would have been burned in the marketplace for witchcraft only about 200 years ago, that I need the First Amendment more than anybody does. And that even if I am repelled by child pornography or Bob Guccione's productions, that I have to protect those things, because essentially it's in my self-interest to do so.

  Erica Jong

  Children, Government, Self

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• Here's a woman, a real pioneer for other women looking for careers in stand-up comedy. And talk about guts - she would come out here and sit in this chair and say some things that were unbelievable - where you would have to swallow pretty hard... but it was hilarious... the force of her comedy was overpowering.

  David Letterman

  Leadership, Fashion, Real

  "Joan Rivers Dead: Hollywood Mourns Comedian" by Hilary Lewis, www.hollywoodreporter.com. September 4, 2014.

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• A city built upon mud;
  A culture built upon profit;
  Free speech nipped in the bud,
  The minority always guilty.
  Why should I want to go back
  To you, Ireland, my Ireland?

  Louis MacNeice

  Cities, Culture, Bud

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.177, Faber & Faber

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• You know, my father was a great encouragement for me because he spoke out for women's rights, he spoke out for girl's education. And at that time I said that why should I wait for someone else, why should I be looking to the government, to the army that they would help us? Why don't I raise my voice, why don't we speak up for our rights?

  Malala Yousafzai

  Leadership, Girl, Education

  "Watch This Incredible Young Woman Render Jon Stewart Speechless". "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, www.upworthy.com. October 10, 2013.

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• We are human beings, and this is the part of our human nature, that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands.

  Malala Yousafzai

  Wisdom, Hands, History

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• The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained.

  Stanley Forman Reed

  Mean, Rely Upon, Justice

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• Why, in a country of free speech, are there phone bills?

  Steven Wright

  Country, Phones, Questions And Answers

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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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• When I need journalistic honesty, I have to turn to Al Jazeera, why is that? One cannot even deny the Holocaust in Europe, question 9/11 in America (unless you want the Ward Churchill treatment), but the West claims they're all about free speech.

  Remi Kanazi

  Honesty, America, Europe

  "What Would Jesus Do?". www.informationclearinghouse.info. February 4, 2006.

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• It's a wise person who knows the difference between free speech and cheap talk.

  Doug Larson

  Wise, Differences, Speech

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• The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down.

  H. L. Mencken

  People, Alarms, Speech

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.635, Vintage

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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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• 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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• 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 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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• We need a constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to control the so-called free speech rights of corporations.

  Hank Johnson

  Rights, Needs, Speech

  "Dem Rep. Hank Johnson: Amend Constitution to Restrict Freedom of Speech" by Eric Scheiner, www.cnsnews.com. November 29, 2012.

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• If you are a parent, if you are an educator, there are very many good and powerful reasons to take children onto the Internet, but you have to be involved with them-you cannot expect government authorities or industry authorities or other people to do your job for you, and that is to help guard your children against some of these things that are occurring out there.

  Jim Carroll

  Jobs, Powerful, Children

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• I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.

  Voltaire

  Taken, Book, Men

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• The great thing about the Internet is that it will not abide by the rules.

  Richard Curtis

  Internet, Great Things

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• I like something with 'vice' in it.

  Ted Turner

  Vices, Internet, Like Something

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