quotations about freedom of speech
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
Effective self-government cannot succeed unless the people are immersed in a steady, robust, unimpeded, and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting which are continuously subjected to critique, rebuttal, and reexamination.
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972
Freedom of speech is a guiding rule, one of the foundations of democracy, but at the same time, freedom does not imply anarchy, and the right to exercise free expression does not include the right to do unjustified harm to others.
RAPHAEL COHEN-ALMAGOR
Speech
Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH
speech at Hall of Science, 1880
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
attributed, The Life of Samuel Johnson
Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.
GEORGE ORWELL
"As I Please", Tribune, April 28, 1944
The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech.
ANTHONY KENNEDY
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 2002
He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.
WENDELL PHILLIPS
oration delivered at Daniel O'Connell celebration in Boston, August 6, 1870
Every important freedom that Western individuals possess rests on free expression. We observe what is wrong, and we say what is wrong, in order that it may be corrected. This is the message of the Enlightenment, the rational process that developed today's Western values: Go. Inquire. Ask. Find out. Dare to know. Don't be afraid of what you'll find. Knowledge is better than superstition, blind belief, and dogma. If you cannot voice -- or even consider -- criticism, then you will never see what is wrong. You cannot solve a problem unless you identify its source.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI
Nomad: From Islam to America
Freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent.
NEIL GAIMAN
American Gods
Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the germs of disease, and bring new elements of health.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.
THOMAS SZASZ
The Second Sin
Free speech is like garlic. If you are perfectly sure of yourself, you enjoy it and your friends tolerate it.
LYNN WHITE, JR.
Look, April 17, 1956
Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.
NOAM CHOMSKY
Manufacturing Consent
I am sure that as soon as speech was invented, efforts to suppress and control it began, and that process of suppression continues unabated.
GILBERT S. MERRITT, JR.
speech at the University of Oregon, 2004
Exercising free speech is like taking the world into your confidence. My imposed silences are more perilous to society than its own reserves are to me. I can better afford to be shut up than society can afford to shut me up.
THEODORE SCHROEDER
"Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law", The Conservator, November 1914
There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly TERRIBLE to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS.
SAMUEL ADAMS
Boston Gazette, 1768
Guilt only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horrour to Day-light.
JOHN TRENCHARD & THOMAS GORDON
Cato's Letters
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
GEORGE ORWELL
Nineteen Eighty-Four
In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.
ABE FORTAS
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 1969