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Free Speech Quotes

Browse 692 quotes about Free Speech.

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Free Speech Quotes

“There is no question that under the Equal Rights Amendment there will be debates at times, indecision at times, litigation at times. Has anyone proposed that we rescind the First Amendment on free speech because there is too much litigation over it? Has anyone suggested the same for the Fourteenth Amendment I don't suppose there has ever been a constitutional amendment with so much litigation?”

FirstsDemocracyToo MuchRightsEqualSpeechDebateOver ItAmendmentsFree SpeechEqual RightsFirst AmendmentIndecisionConstitutional AmendmentsEqual Rights AmendmentFourteenth Amendment
Author:Frances Farenthold
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“Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter. It is, in many ways, the most powerful form of free speech because it is aimed at those in power, or those whose ideas would spread hate. It is the canary in the coalmine, a cultural thermometer, and it always has to push, push, push the boundaries of society to see how much it’s grown.”

WayNeedsIdeasSoulFormHatePowerfulSpeechLaughterUnderstoodAbsolutesCourtSpreadBoundariesKingdomsTelling The TruthSatireMost PowerfulFree SpeechMedievalFree SocietyAccompanyJesterThermometersCanariesCourt Jester
Author:Joe Randazzo
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“Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public places). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don't choose to provide it to you, you then have a 'right' to steal from them. But what about their far more fundamental right not to be robbed?”

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Author:Cliff Asness
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“The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone's account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time.”

KnowsHas BeensWholeModernTheoryTruth IsCostSpeechDiscoveryAccountsRemainsEqualityStrangerExperimentsSurprisingDaringFree SpeechJustifiedModern Times
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Americans have an extraordinary love-hate relationship with the rich culture they've created. They buy, watch and read it even as they ban, block and condemn it.”

AmericaHateCultureWatchesRichInternetExtraordinaryBlockFree SpeechBansLove HateLove Hate RelationshipExtraordinary Love
Book:Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits, and Blockheads Like William Bennett
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“Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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“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.”

HumansUsePoliticalEnjoyTechnologyRightsInformationDrugSpeechHuman RightsVicesFavorsPrivacyAgendasActivistFree SpeechTechnologicalPolitical AgendasIntrudersBasic Human RightsRecreational Drugs
Author:Bram Cohen
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“You see these dictators up on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. They're afraid of words and thought. ... They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words. ... A state of society where men may not speak their mind - where children denounce their parents to the police - where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinion. Such a state of society cannot long endure if it is continually in contact with the healthy outside world.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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