Free Speech Quotes - Page 7

• Free speech not only lives, it rocks!

  Oprah Winfrey

  Rocks, Speech, Censorship

  Oprah Winfrey, Janet Lowe (1998). “Oprah Winfrey speaks: insight from the world's most influential voice”, John Wiley & Sons

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• Information wants to be free.

  Stewart Brand

  Want, Information, Internet

  Quoted in Wash. Post, 18 Nov. 1984

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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 feel the best way to ensure Americans' freedom is to tighten restrictions on that freedom in any way possible. Only through wiretaps, illegal searches and seizures, unfettered government intrusion, a controlled media and a complete crackdown on free speech can we ensure the liberties of all people.

  John Ashcroft

  Stupid, Government, Media

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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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• 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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• Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don't know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don't know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting "shut up"... when they aren't prissily imploring everyone to be "civil."

  Ann Althouse

  Hate, Feet, America

  "Why does the left hate free speech?" by Ann Althouse, althouse.blogspot.ru. February 3, 2011.

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• Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior?

  James B. Donovan

  Jesus, Eight, Years

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• There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust.

  Sophocles

  Justice, Unjust, Internet

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• We know what works: freedom works. We know what's right: freedom is right. We know how to secure a more and just and prosperous life for man on earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

  George H. W. Bush

  Exercise, Men, Presidential

  Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1989

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• Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion;.... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Religious, Teaching, School

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• Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.

  Corliss Lamont

  Atmosphere, Democracy, Liberty

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• What is the point of having free speech if you have nothing to say?

  John Hagee

  Speech, Ifs

  "How Free Is Freedom?". John Hagee, Cornerstone Church official website, July 2, 2006.

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• We don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.

  Peggy Noonan

  Freedom Of Speech, Needs, Control Ourselves

  Peggy Noonan (2008). “Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now”, Harper

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• I've skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech.

  Jeff Dunham

  Christian, Jobs, Believe

  "Comedian Defends 'Achmed the Dead Terrorist' Puppet Routine Against South African Ban" by Joshua Rhett Miller, www.foxnews.com. October 2, 2008.

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• I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it.

  Dana Carvey

  Country, Hate, Thinking

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• You cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's souls and thoughts.... Every step in that direction poisons the very roots of liberalism. It poisons political equality, free speech, free press, and equality of opportunity. It is the road not to more liberty but to less liberty.

  Herbert Hoover

  Opportunity, Government, Roots

  United States. President (1929-1933 : Hoover), Herbert Hoover, United States. Office of the Federal Register (1974). “Herbert Hoover: Containing the public messages, speeches, and statements of the President”

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• No one can deny that much of our modern advertising is essentially dishonest; and it can be maintained that to lie freely and all the time for private profit is not to abuse the right of free speech, whether it is a violation of the law or not. But again the practical question is, how much lying for private profit is to be permitted by law?

  Carl L. Becker

  Time, Lying, Law

  Carl L. Becker (1960). “Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life”

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• But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that.

  Mark Steyn

  Reality, Government, Lines

  Mark Steyn (2014). “The Undocumented Mark Steyn”, p.370, Regnery Publishing

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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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• In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.

  Hugo Black

  War, Government, Afterlife

  "New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713". Concurring opinion, 1971.

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• Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available

  Gregory Benford

  Real, Passion, Information

  Gregory Benford (2010). “Timescape”, p.182, Spectra

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• The Internet is a powerful example of free speech and the free market in action; it is curious that the Net has alarmed the lawmakers of a nation founded on those principles.

  Denise Caruso

  Powerful, Principles, Example

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• The best society, the best human existence, arrives when humans most closely determine the truth, and act on the truth, and separate it from superstition, falsity, or misinformation. And there is no better system for determining the truth than free speech: Testing the validity of an idea in the waters of public discussion and debate.

  Dave Rodgers

  Truth, Ideas, Water

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• But we either believe in democracy or we don't. If we do, then, we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from the any democratic processes, other than by the ordinary law of the land, should be allowed. If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then, no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at nought.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Believe, Men, Law

  Legislative Assembly Debates, April 27, 1955.

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