Quotes and Sayings about Free speech
"Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Government, Criticism, Free speech, Freedom, Press, Right)
"The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Change, Friend, Constitution, Enemy, Free speech, Revolution, Tyranny)
"By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech."
- Harry A. Blackmun
(Related: Censorship, Discretion, Existence, Free speech)
"Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection."
- Neal Boortz
(Related: Free speech, Needs, Popular, Protection)
"Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech."
- Charles Bradlaugh
(Related: Abuse, Denial, Free speech)
"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful."
- Charles Bradlaugh
(Related: Truth, Discovery, Free speech)
"Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Men, Women, Fear, Free speech, Injury, Oppression, Witches)
"Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground."
- Heywood Broun
(Related: Being, Free speech, Moments)
"Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen."
- Warren E. Burger
(Related: Free speech, Freedom)
"I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology, to purchase and use recreational drugs, to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices', to be free of intruders, and to privacy."
- Bram Cohen
(Related: Technology, Drugs, Free speech, Information, Privacy)
"Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: Nature, Free speech)
"And, I hope now that everybody understands that the Labour Party - as it always has done - stands for free speech and individual Members of the Labour Party are entitled to exercise that free speech."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Hope, Exercise, Free speech, Now, Party)
"When the public's right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered."
- Christopher Dodd
(Related: Free speech, Rights, Press, Public, Risk)
"Now is the time to draw a clean, clear, bright line and say if you are engaging in speech over the Internet you do not have to check with your lawyer or your accountant. You are a free American, and you have the opportunity to engage in free speech over the Internet."
- John Doolittle
(Related: Time, Opportunity, American, Free speech, Internet, Now)
"Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Performance, Free speech, May, Today, Yesterday)
"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
- Frederick Douglass
(Related: Free speech, Rights, Wrong)
"These are all voluntary resources which help parents sort out the choices without infringing on the artists' rights to free speech, which is something that we respect."
- Tipper Gore
(Related: Artists, Choices, Free speech, Rights, Help, Parents, Respect)
"You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that."
- Frank Hague
(Related: Time, American, Free speech, Rights, Man, Press, Talk, Words)
"Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
- Abbie Hoffman
(Related: Fire, Free speech, Right)
"The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech."
- bell hooks
(Related: Society, Free speech, Freedom)
"It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own."
- Herbert Hoover
(Related: Power, Free speech, Paradox)
"While even pornography is protected as free speech, the courts have consciously undermined religious speech and freedom of religion for years."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Religion, Free speech, Freedom, Pornography, Religious, Years)
"The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Ideas, Americans, Beliefs, Censorship, Competition, Constitution, Debate, Democracy, First, Free speech, Rights)
"You must stand for free speech in the streets."
- Mary Harris Jones
(Related: Free speech)
"All the big powers they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right."
- Jack Kevorkian
(Related: Choice, Free speech, Right)
"Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose."
- Georgia O'Keeffe
(Related: Free speech, Press)
"The fact that we're protected under that Constitution in exercising the right of free speech, it's a wonderful thing. You've got to come from somewhere else to realize how valuable it is."
- Pat Oliphant
(Related: Constitution, Fact, Free speech, Right)
"Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed."
- Anna Quindlen
(Related: Free speech)
"If Thomas Jefferson had heard us, he probably would have said, 'We shouldn't have free speech.'"
- Robin Quivers
(Related: Free speech)
"In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty."
- Muriel Rukeyser
(Related: Free speech, Poems, Poets, Writing)
"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Life, Free speech)
"Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime."
- Frank Serpico
(Related: Act, Crime, Free speech, President, Today)
"Nor was it only from the millions of slaves that chains had been removed; the whole nation had been in bondage; free speech had been suppressed."
- Matthew Simpson
(Related: Free speech, Nation)
"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."
- Thomas Sowell
(Related: People, Exercise, Free speech, Rights, Numbers, Property)
"There are so many exceptions to free speech: child pornography, cross burning, libel, fighting words."
- Cliff Stearns
(Related: Fighting, Pornography, Words)
"I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned."
- Lucy Stone
(Related: Women, Gratitude, Free speech, Public, Right, Today)
"I don't think we should be deprived of the privilege of free speech."
- Loretta Swit
(Related: Free speech, Privilege)
"The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language. Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way."
- Jimmy Wales
(Related: People, Goal, Beer, Free speech, Language, World)