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Free Expression Quotes

Browse 73 quotes about Free Expression.

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Free Expression Quotes

“An underlying question for many people is "what kind of person do you want to be" in their new expression of gender. There is a need for more diverse expressions of "manhood" and "womanhood," "girlhood" and "boyhood" for everyone in culture. Right now there is a story that to become a man or a woman you must act, talk, walk, and dress a certain way. The belief that people of certain genders have to behave in specific ways invalidates people as a whole, trans and non-trans alike. This becomes a call for healthy gender expressions to be modeled for all children. Parents as well as other adults need to model and encourage everyone to be their best, healthiest, self. We get to move beyond our current culture that belittles girls for pursuing intellectual passions, or boys for expressing emotions; a culture that conflates masculinity with abusive behavior, and femininity with victimhood. Examining these issues creates an opportunity to craft a world where people of any gender expression to explore everything they are passionate about, engage with their emotions, and express themselves fully; a world transformed for our children to live without abuse, regardless of our path in life.”

StereotypesGender RolesFree Expression2016Social Health
Book:Traversing Gender: Understanding Transgender Realities
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“Ye cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse eagarly pursuing of the Truth, unlesse ye first make yourselves that made us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the founders of our true Liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formall, and slavish as ye found us, but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous as they were from whom ye have free'd us.”

CensorshipFree SpeechFree ExpressionAreopagiticaCensorhip Of Books
Book:Areopagitica
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“...know, that so far to distrust' the judgement and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in Learning and never yet offended, as not to count him fit to print his mind without a tutor and examiner lest he should drop a schism or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him.”

CensorshipFree SpeechFree ExpressionAreopagiticaCensorhip Of Books
Book:Areopagitica
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“Blasphemy is just the fanatic's name for criticism. Charb writes wisely: 'A believer can blaspheme only to the extent that the idea of blasphemy holds any meaning to him. A non-believer, no matter how hard he tries, 'cannot' blaspheme. God is sacred only to those who believe in him. If you wish to insult or offend God, you have to be sure that he exists. The strategy used by minority group activists masquerading as anti-racists is to pass off blasphemy as Islamophobia and Islamophobia as racism.' The crucial distinction we must defend is between acts of imagination and acts of violence....Faith is not the enemy. Fanaticism is the enemy. It always is. But only a fool would deny that faith has been the seedbed of fanaticism in mankind's long and sorry struggle for the light. As much as at times we need to seek "solidarity" among unlike groups, we also need to "desolidarize," to "unsolidarize"—to put the people we know before the abstract categories we imagine. Come to think of it, making people, with all their flaws, fully visible while leaving generalized types alone is exactly what the caricaturist has always done for us. It's his special form of bravery.”

Free SpeechBlasphemyFree ExpressionCartoonsCharlie HebdoCaricatureOpen Society
Book:Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression
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“Public opinion! I don't know how sociologists define it, but it seems obvious to me that it can only consist of interacting individual opinions, freely expressed and independent of government or party opinion. So long as there is no independent public opinion in our country, there is no guarantee that the extermination of millions and millions for no good reason will not happen again, that it will not begin any night—perhaps this very night.”

Public OpinionSoviet RussiaFree Expression1977KatorgaWhy Did We Stand For It
Book:The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books V-VII
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“If instituted, the TPP's IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you're ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

IfsThinkingWritingWellsMightIndividualCreativeRightsExpressionOne DayIntellectualIllFarmsRegimesPublishIndividual RightsFree Expression
Author:Julian Assange
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“At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.”

HumansCharacterFormExpressionOffersMathematicsPatternsPhysicsAbstractBranchesDaily LifeRealisticTheoreticalPrevailingHindrancePracticalityFree ExpressionHuman PowerTheoretical Physics
Book:Critical Theory: Selected Essays
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“It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary.... The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint.”

DoeSaidWholeResponsibilityAudienceRightsExpressionTheoryCommunicationCircumstancesIntegritySpeechContraryObligationInvitesSpeakersContemplatingRestraintPropositionsHostilityProvocativeRetaliationFree Expression
Author:Thomas I. Emerson
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“The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.”

ThinkingNeedsStatesGrowthChallengesViewsExpressionIntellectualDiscoveryStrikesUnthinkableFree ExpressionIntellectual FreedomIntellectual Growth
Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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“It [defending Salmon Rushdie] was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual and the defense of free expression.”

IfsI CanMatterHateLiteratureIndividualExpressionI HateStupidityDefenseHatedIronyPhrasesBullyingCensorshipDictatorshipVersusColumnsIntimidationSalmonFree ExpressionRushdieDemagogy
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“In the US the problem has been, for instance, that Nazis have rights of free expression, right? But other kinds of racist speech is not protected. And you have to link the speech to conduct or to a certain kind of threat against minority population. I know that in Europe, this kind of framework doesn't exist in the same way so it's very difficult to make the analogy.”

KnowsWayKindHas BeensProblemCertainDifficultRightsExpressionSpeechEuropeThreatPopulationInstanceMinoritiesRacistLinksProtectedNaziFrameworkAnalogiesFree Expression
Author:Judith Butler
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“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”

PeopleThinkingShouldFirstsGovernmentFreedomLibertyObjectsExpressionProtectFoundation4th Of JulyFreedom And LibertyFreedom Of ThoughtFreedom LibertyFree ExpressionLegitimate GovernmentWriting Essays
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
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“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.”

PeopleIfsIdeasBusinessAtheismPoliticianSpeechHumorousFavorsCensorshipFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechSay AnythingHypocriteOutrageFree ExpressionFreedom Of Speech And Expression
Book:War Speeches: From September 11, 1943 to August 16, 1945
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“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

IfsHumansWellsStillsEvilOpportunityLosesRaceOpinionGenerationsExpressionBenefitsPerceptionErrorsImpressionHuman RacePeculiarCensorshipFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechDeprivedPosterityDissentFreedom Of ExpressionCollisionRobbingExchangingFree ExpressionSilencingLimiting Freedom Of ExpressionFreedom Of Speech And Expression
Book:The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill
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“He said he "admired our courage" but didn't want to see us do anything to "damage our promising futures." He felt "proud as an American" that we had "exercised our right to peaceful free expression." But if we did it again, he didn't "know what action the state board of education might take against individual students." Translation: You've had your fun. Now sit down, shut up, and take the freakin' test. Or else.”

IfsKnowsWantSaidStatesMightActionIndividualFunFeltStudentsExpressionProudTestsPeacefulBoardsDamageShut UpTranslationsFree ExpressionBoard Of Education
Author:Jordan Sonnenblick
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“[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone.”

PeopleHumansMadeChristianFormLeftSocialHuman BeingsViewsOpinionRightsMankindExpressionProtectInjusticeCreatorDenyAriseDoctrineCivil RightsOppressionInsultMinoritiesProtestRebellionRegimesGod ImageDehumanizationFree ExpressionSocial Injustice
Author:John Stott
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