#Free Speech Quotes

“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”

“Do not criticize your government when out of the country. Never cease to do so when at home”

“I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.”

“Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.”

“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.”

“I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.”

“Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech.”

“In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.”

“Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”

“Up until the late unpleasantness of the Civil war, then, the right of secession was more or less taken for granted in many quarters, and there has never been any amendment or even a Supreme Court decision saying it's improper. - Samual Francis, Secession May Be Legal But Not Expedient, Conservative ChroniclesIf there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

“They claim that I'm violent just cuz I refuse to be silent.”

“Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.”

“Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”

“It is amazing how many people act as if the right to free speech includes the right to be free of criticism for what you say - which means that other people should not have the same right to free speech that they claim for themselves.”

“Too many people - some of them judges - seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for what you have said. If you believe that, try insulting your boss when you go to work tomorrow. Better yet, try insulting your spouse before going to bed tonight.”

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

“If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

“The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.”

“I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.”

“The restoration of free speech, free association and free press is almost the whole Swaraj.”

“The reason that democracies always defeat dictatorships is because they're open to debate. We should never allow Washington to say, 'Shut up, get in line and wave the flag.'”

“None but the dead have free speech.”

“Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters.”

“In America-as elsewhere-free speech is confined to the dead.”

“Aggressive civil disobedience should be confined to a vindication of the right of free speech and free association.”

“I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.”

“Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalize the free play of ideas.”

“I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition, but avoidance.”

“Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a... secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.”

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

“Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted”

“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”

“The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.”

“I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.”

“I believe you can joke about anything.”

“In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.”

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States. If somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what's going to happen when they see a documentary they don't like or news reports they don't like."”

“I have the right to remain violente. Everything I say can and will be used against you.”

“When men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.”

“Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common. We both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression. But Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera, I'll kill you. I mean it.”

“Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.”

“Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.”

“I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so.”

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself.”

“The values that we talked about, the values democracy and free speech and international norms and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Things are not something that we can set aside.”

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

“To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing.”