Free Speech Quotes - Page 21

• The net poses a fundamental threat not only to the authority of the government, but to all authority, because it permits people to organize, think, and influence one another without any institutional supervision whatsoever.

  John Seabrook

  Thinking, Government, People

  "My First Flame". Brave New World Dept., www.newyorker.com. June 6, 1994.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone's account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Equality, Discovery, Cost

  "Robert Browning". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1903.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can't protect their conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you take a long step toward making a transition from a free society to a totalitarian society.

  Whitfield Diffie

  Thinking, Long, People

  11 Copy quote

• Americans have an extraordinary love-hate relationship with the rich culture they've created. They buy, watch and read it even as they ban, block and condemn it.

  Jon Katz

  Hate, Block, America

  Jon Katz (1997). “Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits, and Blockheads Like William Bennett”, Random House Incorporated

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world

  Alison Lurie

  Fashion, Inspiration, World

  1981 The Language of Clothes.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any kind of restrictions put on free speech would have worse consequences than bullying.

  Lady Starlight

  Bullying, Speech, Kind

  7 Copy quote

• Legislation needs a better reason than that lawyers like it, and that America does it.

  Lawrence Lessig

  America, Doe, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• The underground press serves as the only effective counter to a growing power, and more sophisticated techniques used by establishment mass media to falsify, misrepresent, misquote, rule out of consideration as a priori ridiculous, or simply ignore and blot out of existence: data, books, discoveries that they consider prejudicial to establishment interest.

  William S. Burroughs

  Book, Discovery, Media

  William S. Burroughs (1979). “Ah Pook is here, and other texts”, Calder Publications Limited

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In 1991, the latest year figures are available, most Americans, across all age groups, disapproved when asked the question: 'Everything considered, would you say that you approve or disapprove of wiretapping?' Some 67% of all 18-20 year olds gave the thumbs down, as did 68% of the Gen-X crowd...Boomers disapproved of wiretapping almost 3-to-1 while 67% of those 50 and over disapproved.

  Brock N. Meeks

  Years, Thumbs Down, Age

  4 Copy quote

• I believe in markets doing what they do well, which is to develop technology, and letting citizens do what they ideally do well, which is to set policy.

  Esther Dyson

  Believe, Technology, Citizens

  5 Copy quote

• Frankly, the people probably most interested in having computer lists on disk are junk mail vendors and solicitors.

  Karen Hughes

  People, Junk, Mail

  4 Copy quote

• Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

  George Orwell

  Years, Forever, Nineteen

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• In order to keep up with the criminals and to protect our national security, the solution is clear: we need legislation to ensure that telephone companies and other carriers provide law enforcement with access to this new technology.

  Louis J. Freeh

  Technology, Order, Law

  4 Copy quote

• I used to feel like I was a flea on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Now I feel I might be a small yapping poodle on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  Phil Zimmermann

  Poodles, Might, Fleas

  12 Copy quote

• Information wants to be free. Believe it.

  Bruce Sterling

  Believe, Want, Information

  4 Copy quote

• While we bemoan the decline of literacy, computers discount words in favor of pictures and pictures in favor of video. While we fret about the decreasing cogency of public debate, computers dismiss linear argument and promote fast, shallow romps across the information landscape. While we worry about basic skills, we allow into the classroom software that will do a student's arithmetic or correct his spelling.

  David Gelernter

  Skills, Worry, Video

  10 Copy quote

• Society has recognized over time that certain kinds of scientific inquiry can endanger society as a whole and has applied either directly, or through scientific/ethical constraints, restrictions on the kind and amount of research that can be done in those areas.

  Bobby Ray Inman

  Inquiry, Done, Research

  4 Copy quote

• There is a very real and critical danger that unrestrained public discussion of cryptologic matters will seriously damage the ability of this government to conduct signals intelligence and the ability of this government to carry out its mission of protecting national security information from hostile exploitation.

  Bobby Ray Inman

  Real, Government, Information

  6 Copy quote

• Behind all the hype shaping the electronic highway are corporate interests. These huge companies are doing the most natural thing in the world to them; following their own corporate interest.

  Herbert Schiller

  Hype, World, Internet

  7 Copy quote

• The FBI wanted us to introduce the 1994 Digital Telephony bill today and I said absolutely not. They have to understand they have a Vermonter as the Chairman Of the Technology and Law committee and that we Vermonters respect our privacy.

  Patrick Leahy

  Technology, Law, Bills

  4 Copy quote

• There are no bad haircuts in cyberspace.

  Dave Barry

  Cyberspace, Internet, Bad Haircuts

  5 Copy quote

• In Turkey it was always 1952, in Malaysia 1937; Afghanistan was 1910 and Bolivia 1949. It is 20 years ago in the Soviet Union, 10 in Norway, five in France. It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan.

  Paul Theroux

  Japan, Next Week, Years

  Paul Theroux (2012). “The Lower River”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our fear of technology is really a fear of empowerment. We now have the ability to design the reality we live in, and we have to step up to the occasion.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Technology, Reality, Design

  8 Copy quote

• There happened in the Middle Ages what has happened so often since then. Those who were the beneficiaries of the established order were bent on defending it, not so much, perhaps, because it guaranteed their interests, as because it seemed to them indispensable to the preservation of society.

  Henri Pirenne

  Order, Age, Internet

  Henri Pirenne (1956). “Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade”, p.169, Princeton University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig...The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Children, Book, Reading

  12 Copy quote