Free Speech Quotes - Page 5

• I remain optimistic that ultimately free speech and a free press where individuals have access to the dialogue will have a self-correcting quality.

  Al Gore

  Optimistic, Self, Quality

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Free speech in Bangladesh can get you killed

  Rachel Martin

  Speech, Bangladesh

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Struggle, America

  "Question time" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2003.

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• Our institutions, if they do not erode entirely, can survive periods of decadence brought on by our material success, eras when the whole notion of civic militarism seems bothersome, and in which free speech is used to focus on our own imperfections without concern for the ghastly nature of our enemies.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Focus, Imperfection, Enemy

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• The United States is a land of free speech. Nowhere is speech freer - not even here where we sedulously cultivate it even in its most repulsive form.

  Winston Churchill

  Land, America, United States

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

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• So far as I am concerned I have no doctrinaire belief in free speech. In the interest of the war it is necessary to sacrifice some of it.

  Walter Lippmann

  War, Sacrifice, Speech

  Walter Lippmann, John Morton Blum (1985). “Public philosopher: selected letters of Walter Lippmann”, Book Sales

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• We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost ... the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world.

  Richard M. Nixon

  War, Vietnam, World

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• From the start, I've always admired Eminem's thinking. That's the reason I wanted to appear on the Grammys with him when I was asked. Eminem has the balls to say what he feels and to make offensive things funny. That's very necessary today in America, with people being muzzled and irony becoming a lost art. Artists like Eminem who use their free speech to get a point across are vitally important. There just aren't many people in the world with balls that big and talent that awesome.

  Elton John

  Art, Thinking, America

  "Eminem's Homophobic 'Rap God' Lyrics Spark Media Frenzy". www.hollywoodreporter.com. October 18, 2013.

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• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Government, Political

  Letter to Archibald Stewart, 23 Dec. 1791

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• It has been my pleasure to speak at many Federalist Society gatherings around the country, and I think one thing your organization has definitely done is to contribute to free speech, free debate, and most importantly public understanding of, awareness of, and appreciation of the Constitution. So that's a marvelous contribution, and in a way I must say I'm jealous at how the Federalist Society has thrived at law schools.

  Nadine Strossen

  Country, Appreciation, School

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• We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?

  Emma Goldman

  War, Home, Independent

  Address to the Jury, delivered 9 July 1917, New York

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• You get to say that the Earth is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech. But it's not a country that guarantees that anything you say is correct.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Country, Guarantees That, Earth

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• Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Prejudice, Speech, Bourgeois

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• People depend on the Open Internet to connect and communicate with each other freely. Voters need it to inform themselves before casting ballots. Without prompt corrective action by the Commission to reclassify broadband, this awful ruling will serve as a sorry memorial to the corporate abrogation of free speech.

  Michael Copps

  Sorry, People, Memorial

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• Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Rights, Tyrants

  Frederick Douglass (2017). “Frederick Douglass: 100 Quotes on Bondage, Perseverance, and Redemption”

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• However, they ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended to protect only against government sanctions for exercising free speech rights, not private actions.

  Ed Koch

  Exercise, Rights, Government

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• I believe that sensitivity to issues of race and ethnicity is important, and nuanced, even more so when it intersects with the issue of free speech.

  Gene Weingarten

  Believe, Race, Ethnicity

  Source: live.washingtonpost.com

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• The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.

  John Paul Stevens

  Expression, Benefits, Censorship

  "ACLU Hails Supreme Court Victory in Internet Censorship Challenge". www.aclu.org. June 27, 1997.

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• Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.

  Richard Stallman

  Beer, Thinking, Liberty

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.35, Lulu.com

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• I actually think it is people like myself who have been fighting for our rights to free speech and I would like the right to defend my own right to free speech, not have soldiers doing it for me. I don't think I need soldiers.

  Medea Benjamin

  Fighting, Thinking, Rights

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• Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Mean, People

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.176, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A tranquil city of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of gelded bulls - whereas a city of anarchy is a city of promise.

  Mark Helprin

  Law, Cities, Promise

  "Always carry a bin bag" by Jemima Lewis, www.theguardian.com. September 2, 2005.

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• I don't know, people take chances on stage. It's a big free speech zone, a comedy show. So sometimes things happen, you say things that are a little bit off the edge.

  Drew Carey

  People, Speech, Littles

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• You know, everybody believes in free speech until you start questioning them about it.

  Larry Flynt

  Believe, Speech, Questioning

  "Publisher Larry Flynt". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. April 22, 2011.

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• And a democracy can't exist without free speech and the right to assemble. And that's what Americans tend to forget. And they're born into a culture where they take all of their freedoms for granted.

  Larry Flynt

  Democracy, Culture, Speech

  "Larry Flynt on sex and presidents" by Katie McLaughlin, www.cnn.com. April 20, 2011.

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