Quotes & Sayings About Free Speech

The function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea. — William O. Douglas

I once had a mind of quicksand,
That dragged ideas into its depths,
Inhaling specks of sunlight,
Every time I drew a breath,
But the world thought me a hazard,
When every word I spoke, I meant,
So around me they put caution tape,
And filled me with cement. — Erin Hanson

The price of liberty is, in addition to eternal vigilance, eternal patience with the vacuous blather occasionally expressed from behind the shield of free speech. — Michael Shermer

Everyone asks for freedom for himself,
The man free love, the businessman free trade,
The writer and talker free speech and free press. — Robert Frost

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

To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. — Mahatma Gandhi

Mexico is a country without political freedom, without freedom of speech, without a free press, without a free ballot, without a jury system, without political parties, without any of our cherJ ished guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a land where there has been no contest for the office of president for more than a generation, where the executive rules all things by means of a standing army, where political offices are sold for a fixed price. I found Mexico to be a land where the people are poor because they have no rights, where peonage is the rule for the great mass, and where actual chattel slavery obtains for hundreds of thousands. — John Kenneth Turner

The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them. — Henry Steele Commager

The idea that corporations have the same First Amendment protections of free speech as people is troubling. Corporations are not people. They don't attend our schools, get married and have children. They don't vote in our elections. — Hank Johnson

That said, the question remains: how to strike the balance between free speech and mutual respect in this mixed-up world, both blessed and cursed with instant communication? We should not fight fire with fire, threats with threats. — Timothy Garton Ash

I realized that the legal system was corrupt when I went to court and the judge imposed a very short time limit on my evidence submission before removing my legal rights to free speech. — Steven Magee

We [in USA] have people honestly believing that, if a president calls a war, you have to shut up and sing. That is not the nation my mother raised me to pledge my allegiance to. We should speak out. We sent thousands of Americans to foreign battlefields to protect our way of life, which includes free speech. If you're not going to use it, it's already lost. We'll find a Mussolini who will tell us what's good for us. — Phil Donahue

Strange it is that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free speech but object to their being "pushed to an extreme", not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. — John Stuart Mill

You have to organize, organize, organize, and build and build, and train and train, so that there is a permanent, vibrant structure of which people can be part. — Ralph E. Reed Jr.

Veterans will eat there too (...). She'll wish to talk with them, but she won't because any interest from her would be sure to be misunderstood. Her body as usual would get in the way of free speech. — Margaret Atwood

My Most True Assassin, Enclosed are seven books from my personal library that I have recently read and enjoyed immensely. You are, of course, free to read as many of the books in the castle library as you wish, but I command you to read these first so that we might discuss them. I promise they are not dull, for I am not one inclined to sit through pages of nonsense and bloated speech, though perhaps you enjoy works and authors who think very highly of themselves. Most affectionately, Dorian Havilliard — Sarah J. Maas

I am broadly concerned about the slow death of free speech, but particularly in universities and also with regards to the climate change debate. — Judith Curry

Free speech is not the cause of the tensions that are growing around us, but the only possible solution to them. — Roger Scruton

Moderate people are able to be moderate and have free speech only because there are some people on the fringe. — Patrick Chappatte

Whatever doubt there may be as to the quality or purpose of our free speech we certainly have ample volumes in production. — Herbert Hoover

Why, in a country of free speech, are there phone bills? — Steven Wright

A city built upon mud;
A culture built upon profit;
Free speech nipped in the bud,
The minority always guilty.
Why should I want to go back
To you, Ireland, my Ireland?
...
Her mountains are still blue, her rivers flow
Bubbling over the boulders.
She is both a bore and a bitch;
Better close the horizon,
Send her no more fantasy, no more longings which
Are under a fatal tariff.
For common sense is the vogue
And she gives her children neither sense nor money
Who slouch around the world with a gesture and a brogue
And a faggot of useless memories. — Louis MacNeice

Redefine the possible. — Stewart Brand

The story of Daniel Lord and the Legion of Decency goes to a central contention of this book: in the United States, it is industrial structure that determines the limits of free speech. — Tim Wu

I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. — J.K. Rowling

Every other basic right, such as the Formation of Government and the Right to Freedom of Organization, are simply practical extensions of the Right to Free Speech. On this law democracy stands or falls. — Stieg Larsson

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. — Winston S. Churchill

Confronted with such flagrant acts of intolerance - such abuses of the freedom of speech - a free society must surely do more. For intolerance is the one thing a free society cannot afford to tolerate. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I think it's important, however, that as we again talk about the importance of free speech we make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not America they are not who were they are not what we do and they will be prosecuted, so I want that message to be clear also. — Loretta Lynch

What we have," Robert tells us, "is not democracy. It is imitative democracy. We have all the external signs. We have elections. We have a parliament. We have legislation. All the accessories of democracy. But anyone with common sense here knows we live in an authoritarian state. Putin has learned that if he offers the accessories of democracy, his regime can be very hard to accuse. The regime does one thing very well: It doesn't listen. So there can be free speech, channels of communication. But normally in a democracy, those voices affect decision making. In this country that doesn't happen. — David Greene

To say that you believe in free speech 'but' is not simply to qualify your support, but to dissolve it altogether. Free speech is not something you can sort-of believe in on a scale of 1 to 10. — Mick Hume

What yells out at the US public ... is the incandescent hypocrisy of so many people who, in the name of free speech, persecute its practitioners if their opinions are conservative. — William F. Buckley Jr.

Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship. — Aryeh Neier

Religious liberty doesn't include encouraging a fellow American to engage in violent jihad and kill an American here. That is not protected free speech. That is not protected religious belief. — George Pataki

The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. — Paula Poundstone

If liberalism is to mean anything at all, it is duty bound to support without hesitation the dissenting individual over the group, the heretic over the orthodox, innovation over stagnation, and free speech over offense. — Maajid Nawaz

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

Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world — Alison Lurie

Free speech is against governments, not against the NBA. So the players and coaches and indeed owners have been fined for their speech, which is costly rather than free. I sort of acknowledge that there is not free speech when you agree to work in the NBA. — David Stern

It's always easy to get people to condemn threats to free speech when the speech being threatened is speech that they like. It's much more difficult to induce support for free speech rights when the speech being punished is speech they find repellent. — Glenn Greenwald

Freedom of speech is, to all Americans, as oxygen is to the human condition. It is a right that has been irreversibly programmed into our hard drive. We are free to speak our minds. An artist's right to express him or herself as best suits their art, is the artist's prerogative and it is guaranteed. — John C. McGinley

I am halfway through Hillary Clinton's latest called "Living History"...pretty lighthearted on the scale...unlike David Hick's autobiography...I had to skip a couple of hundred pages in the middle of that one because it was too distressing for me to read. Undoubtedly yours will be the same...I will read the beginning, skip all the awful bit in the middle and read your happy ever after bit at the end. — Paige Garland

Free markets are a tool, free speech is a goal. — Tim Bray

The hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Comedy clubs are arguably one of the last bastions of uncensored, public free speech. — Ted Alexandro

You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education. — Donna Shalala

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing. — Fred Wilson

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more ... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.
[I saw hate in a graveyard
Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005] — Stephen Fry

Equally, the Internet interprets attempts at proprietary control as threats and mobilizes to defeat them. — Eric S. Raymond

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. — H.L. Mencken

In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedomwhen people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce. — Tim Robbins

I was very much influenced by a great book by the scholar Neil Richards called Intellectual Privacy, that [Louis] Brandeis changed his mind on the proper balance between dignity and free speech. — Jeffrey Rosen

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

I don't understand why they call it public broadcasting. As far as I am concerned, there's nothing public about it; it's an elitist enterprise. 'Rush Limbaugh' is public broadcasting. — Newt Gingrich

It's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences and/or ridicule. — A.E. Samaan

The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind. — Christopher Hitchens

This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths. — Simon Heffer

Free speech is a restraint on government; not an incitement to the citizen. — David McCullough

All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States
and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death! — Kurt Vonnegut

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One s right to life liberty and property to free speech a free press freedom of worship and assembly and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote they depend on the outcome of no elections. — Robert H. Jackson

We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech — Susan Brownmiller

Question everything - ban nothing — Mick Hume

If you say, I'm living in America and I have freedom of speech but I choose not to use it because it's going to cost me, well, you're not living in freedom. You're not free. — Tim Robbins

Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant venomous things that are said but, on the whole, we would rather lump them than do away with them. — Winston Churchill

Without free speech no search for truth is possible ... no discovery of truth is useful ... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race. — Charles Bradlaugh

America is a great place, speech is free and you're able to expose the fact that you're an idiot, — Eric Stonestreet

The Constitution guarantees free speech, but it doesn't guarantee listeners. — John C. Maxwell

About these developments George Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four , was quite wrong. He described a new kind of state and police tyranny, under which the freedom of speech has become a deadly danger, science and its applications have regressed, horses are again plowing untilled fields, food and even sex have become scarce and forbidden commodities: a new kind of totalitarian puritanism, in short. But the very opposite has been happening. The fields are plowed not by horses but by monstrous machines, and made artificially fertile through sometimes poisonous chemicals; supermarkets are awash with luxuries, oranges, chocolates; travel is hardly restricted while mass tourism desecrates and destroys more and more of the world; free speech is not at all endangered but means less and less. — John Lukacs

None but the dead have free speech. — Mark Twain

Citizens United fought to defend our right to free speech - and won a great victory in the United States Supreme Court. — Marsha Blackburn

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. — Frederick Douglass

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish ... to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
Outside The Whale (Granta, 1984) — Salman Rushdie

Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. — Liu Xiaobo

Free speech is a great idea, but were in a war. — Lindsey Graham

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. — Noam Chomsky

I think we are in fact, losing free speech. We don't seem to care though. Many of us don't seem to notice. We will have to do a lot of work to bring back the American way to America. — Henry Rollins

Free speech is essential to education, especially to a liberal education, which encourages the search for truths in art and science. If expression is restricted, the range of inquiry is also curtailed ... The beneficiaries of a free society have a duty to pursue the truth and to protect the freedom of expression that makes possible the search for a new enlightenment. — Norman Dorsen

Freedom of speech means setting words free. Imprisoned and freed words are consequential. All words have consequences. Restrain and release words with respect for their consequentialness. — John R. Dallas Jr.

I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks: the ghost of a linnen decency yet haunts us. — John Milton

I had learned that some people feel that books are "intrusive," in the sense that books put things in their heads that they don't want there. Some people call these things "ideas." Maybe they're right. Sometimes these ideas sprout into what are known as "thoughts," and you know my feelings about school, government, and big businesses
thoughts are the last things they want rattling around inside people's heads because thoughts inevitably lead to consumer protection, free speech and hippies. — Gary Reilly

The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies. — Fred M. Vinson

When I need journalistic honesty, I have to turn to Al Jazeera, why is that? One cannot even deny the Holocaust in Europe, question 9/11 in America (unless you want the Ward Churchill treatment), but the West claims they're all about free speech. — Remi Kanazi

Librarians' values are as sound as Girl Scouts': truth, free speech, and universal literacy. And, like Scouts, they possess a quality that I think makes librarians invaluable and indispensable: they want to help. They want to help us. They want to be of service. And they're not trying to sell us anything. — Marilyn Johnson

In front of us there is an immense garden of words and non-words, a serre, that is, a greenhouse in which are preserved by my care so many things of speech you have given me while leaving me free to cultivate them. — Helene Cixous

It is from him, from Beolco Ruzzante, that I've learned to free myself from conventional literary writing and to express myself with words that you can chew, with unusual sounds, with various techniques of rhythm and breathing, even with the rambling nonsense-speech of the 'grammelot.' — Dario Fo

The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding. — Immanuel Kant

The only security of all is in a free press. — Thomas Jefferson

Indeed, an astoundingly small proportion of arguments 'for free speech' and 'against censorship' or 'banning' are, in fact, about free speech, censorship or banning. It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say. Being asked to apologise for saying something unconscionable is not the same as being stripped of the legal right to say it. It's really not very f-cking complicated. Cry "free speech" in such contexts, you are demanding the right to speak any bilge you wish without apology or fear of comeback. You are demanding not legal rights but an end to debate about and criticism of what you say. When did bigotry get so needy? This assertive & idiotic failure to understand that juridical permissibility backed up by the state is not the horizon of politics or morality is absurdly resilient. — China Mieville

We civilians defend our own right to free speech. The military in Iraq does not defend our right to free speech. — Medea Benjamin

I detect the activist returning with a vengence. — E.A. Bucchianeri

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

It occurs to Blanche that English doesn't have French's useful distinction between libre, meaning that something's unconstrained, and gratuit, meaning that it costs nothing. Free thought, free speech, free love: the English word that Arthur was so fond of obscures the price of things. — Emma Donoghue

Free speech rights means that government officials are barred from creating lists of approved and disapproved political ideas and then using the power of the state to enforce those preferences. — Glenn Greenwald

The traditional boundaries between various fields of science are rapidly disappearing and what is more important science does not know any national borders. The scientists of the world are forming an invisible network with a very free flow of scientific information - a freedom accepted by the countries of the world irrespective of political systems or religions ... Great care must be taken that the scientific network is utilized only for scientific purposes - if it gets involved in political questions it loses its special status and utility as a nonpolitical force for development. — Sune Bergstrom

Our country is the only one that truly permits you to speak bad of your country, so you really shouldn't say anything bad about it. — James Rozoff

They [left-wingers] willy-nilly throw around the accusation of Nazism and comparisons to Hitler whenever confronted by any opposition, yet they are today's Nazis in their determination to shut down by threats or violence free speech and assembly. — Steve McCann

The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees. — Louis D. Brandeis

Both groups [of pundits] were critics, and that is the heart of the problem. If you are a pundit, you seem so smart when you are telling the President what he did wrong ... This [is] mostly BS. — Jeffrey A. Miller

It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed. — Paula Poundstone