Quotessence
Home / Topics / Free Speech Quotes

Free Speech Quotes

Browse 692 quotes about Free Speech.

Related topics

InternetPeopleIfsFreedom Of SpeechGovernmentThinkingDemocracyCensorshipPoliticalShouldLibertyPoliticsFreedomMenPressesRightsBelieveKnowsAmericaCountryFirst AmendmentFirstsWantLawIdeologyNeedsSpeakAmendmentsWorldProtectTechnologyWayConstitutionHumansRealReasonGivingMeanRealityWholeComputerJusticeMayOpinionCommunicationFree PressFreedom Of The PressHas BeensHateInformationLimiting Freedom Of ExpressionNationsPolicySaidStatesWellsAbuseDebateDoeFreedom Of ThoughtIdeasImportantInterestMindPersonsPrivacyTryingUseYearsBookCommunityEndsFeelsFormWarAbilityBeliefCasesChildrenCitizensComedyCommonCultureHistoryI BelieveKindProtectionTermAgreeBook BanningCensoringCensorship In BooksCorporationsCourtDangerEthicsExpressionFree ExpressionFree MarketFundamentalsmore

Free Speech Quotes

“During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power.”

YearsHas BeensWarStatesStoriesLastsLawEnjoyPowerfulClassPowerMilitaryCommunicationSpeechAuthorityAdvantageEconomicsConstitutionPressesLocalsTalesOppressionDozenFree SpeechBentDespotismSuppressionFree PressAssemblageMartial Law
Author:Edward Alsworth Ross
Create image

“I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors.”

ThinkingBelieveI BelieveFreedomLibertyRightsConditionsMediaHavensPleaseLimitsSpeechConstitutionPressesNeighborTolerancePrivacyFree SpeechNuisanceCollideRight To Privacy
Author:H. L. Mencken
Create image

“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.”

PoliticalEasyEnvironmentEffectsSpeechBirdInstrumentsWestWesternContractsFree SpeechLoanPolitical WillBadgersPower Relationships
Author:Julian Assange
Create image

“All political movements are like this - we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.”

PeopleRealityPoliticalPoliticsSidesCommunityPartyMoralEnemyGenerationsHuman NatureMovementBecomingEthicsAbsolutesStrategyUnityTerrorConvictionIdeologyTeaVotingDisagreeFree SpeechSuperiorityPolitical PartiesFlexibilityCivilityDisobedienceTea PartyCivil DisobedienceHereticPartisanshipThird PartiesPolitical MovementsOversimplificationMoral Superiority
Author:Doris Lessing
Create image

“All speech should be presumed to be protected by the Constitution, and a heavy burden should be placed on those who would censor to demonstrate with relative certainty that the speech at issue, if not censored, would lead to irremediable and immediate serious harm.”

IfsShouldIssuesSeriousSpeechConstitutionBurdenHeavyHarmCertaintyRelativeProtectedFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechCensoredHeavy Burdens
Book:Finding, Framing, and Hanging Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and Freedom of Speech in an Age of Terrorism
Create image

“How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak?”

MenHumansRealSpeakImaginationHuman BeingsLibertyExerciseSpeechDenyBelieverToleranceAllowingFree SpeechMy ImaginationTolerationImpudence
Book:The Limitations of Toleration: A Discussion Between Robert G. Ingersoll, Frederic R. Coudert, Stewart L. Woodford, Before the Nineteenth Century Club, of New York, at the Metropolitan Opera House
Create image

“I think the reality is that copyright law has for a very long time been a tiny little part of American jurisprudence, far removed from traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, and that made sense before the Internet. Now there is an unavoidable link between First Amendment interests and the scope of copyright law. The legal system is recognizing for the first time the extraordinary expanse of copyright regulation and its regulation of ordinary free-speech activities.”

ThinkingFirstsLittlesLongMadeRealityLawInterestInternetActivitySpeechLong TimeOrdinaryFirst TimeExtraordinaryTinyTraditionalLinksAmendmentsRegulationFree SpeechRecognizingScopeFirst AmendmentCopyrightLegal SystemExpanseJurisprudenceCopyright Law
Author:Lawrence Lessig
Create image

“Meiklejohn's position is that free speech in a democracy is not an absolute flowing from the boundless source of some presumed 'natural right.' It is a practical necessity of 'self-government by universal suffrage,' for if the citizens are not permitted to argue out the issues of government, how can they be what they must be in a democracy - the rulers as well as the ruled?”

IfsWellsSelfGovernmentNaturalDemocracyIssuesAtheismPositionSourceCitizensSpeechUniversalAbsolutesArguingPracticalsRulersFree SpeechBoundlessSuffrageSelf-governmentUniversal Suffrage
Author:Max Lerner
Create image

“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.”

IfsArtTruthFreedomEducationExpressionDutyProtectSpeechEssentialsEnlightenmentPursueRangeFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechInquiryFree SocietyFreedom Of ExpressionArt And ScienceSearch For TruthBeneficiariesLiberal Education
Author:Norman Dorsen
Create image

“The radicals...want speech regulated by codes that proscribe certain language. They see free speech as at best a delusion, at worst a threat to the welfare of minorities and women....The most obvious (and cynical) explanation for the switched positions is the switched situations. Protesting students became established professors and administrators. For outsiders, free speech is bread and butter; for insiders, indigestion. To the new academics, unregulated free speech spells trouble.”

WantCertainLanguageSituationTroubleWorstPositionStudentsSpeechThreatObviousBreadRadicalCodeWelfareExplanationMinoritiesDelusionProfessorsSpellsCynicalFree SpeechOutsidersAdministratorsInsidersIndigestionBread And Butter
Author:Russell Jacoby
Create image

“Nobody needs to justify why they "need" a right: the burden of justification falls on the one seeking to infringe upon the right. But even if they did, you can't give away the rights of others because they're not useful to you. More simply, the majority cannot vote away the natural rights of the minority. Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

NeedsGivingDifferentCareFallNaturalRightsSpeechVoteMajoritySeekingBurdenDon't CareArguingPrivacyMinoritiesJustifyJustificationFree SpeechNatural RightsRight To Privacy
Author:Edward Snowden
Create image