Best speech & first-amendment Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“We, as artists, we have the right to express ourselves. That is our first amendment, freedom of speech. But I also believe that we have an obligation to the youth to be somewhat responsible in what we say on records. But I think that comes with age. I think that comes with artists growing up and becoming assured of who they are as people.”

People Thinking Firsts Believe Age Artist Growing Up Records Growing Youth Becoming Speech Responsible Obligation Amendments Freedom Of Speech Assured First Amendment

Author:Ja Rule

“The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.”

World Firsts Country Speech Currents Amendments Other Countries Freedom Of Speech First Amendment

Author:Neil Gaiman

“So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech.”

Firsts Book Sometimes Fighting Literature Winning Rights Speech Losing Defense Comic Fund Amendments Freedom Of Speech Comic Book First Amendment First Amendment Rights

Author:Neil Gaiman

“The Framers of the First Amendment were not concerned with preventing government from abridging their freedom to speak about crops and cockfighting, or with protecting the expressive activity of topless dancers, which of late has found some shelter under the First Amendment. Rather, the Framers cherished unabridged freedom of political communication.”

Source: With a Happy Eye, But...: America and the World, 1997--2002

“The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging.”

Firsts Mean Made Law Language Simple Rooms Speech Presses Congress Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Inference Simple Words

Author:Hugo Black

“If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.”

Ifs Firsts Might Darkness Doors Style Keys Speech Constitution Saint Tyranny Granted Amendments Sunlight First Amendment Saint Paul

Book:Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

Source: Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

“It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”

Men Speech Function Injury Justify Free Speech Freedom Of Speech Irrational Bondage First Amendment Assembly Freedom Of Thought Free Man Censorship In Books Limiting Freedom Of Expression Irrational Fear Freedom Of Assembly

Book:Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration

Source: Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration

“The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws - I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.”

“Despite the apparent absoluteness of the First Amendment, there are any number of ways of getting around it, ways that are known to any student of law. In general, the strategy is to manipulate the distinction between speech and action which is at bottom a distinction between inconsequential and consequential behavior.”

Way Firsts Action Law Numbers Known Students Speech Behavior Constitution Strategy Bottom Despite Distinction Amendments Manipulate First Amendment Inconsequential

Author:Stanley Fish

“In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.”

“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.”

“In fact, it's the greatest threat to liberty of all kinds, whether it is freedom of religion, whether it is freedom of speech, whether it is freedom of the press, whether it is freedom of association, all of the rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment are threatened by the active, aggressive homosexual lobby and the homosexual agenda.”

“For the first 200 years of our nation's history, corporations were never defined by the courts as persons with free speech rights under the First Amendment. Only in recent years have we witnessed this corporate takeover of our First Amendment, culminating in the Citizens United ruling.”

Years Firsts Persons Nations United Rights Citizens Speech Court Defined Corporate Corporations Amendments Free Speech Ruling First Amendment Takeovers Citizens United

Author:John Bonifaz

“The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.”

Firsts Speech Fairs Amendments First Amendment

Author:David Mamet

“There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse.”

Firsts Long Pay Known Risk Influence Speech Propaganda Amendments Restraint First Amendment Secured

Author:Warren E. Burger

“The First Amendment is important not only to guarantee the rights of alternative religions and of nonreligious persons in society; it is also important in setting the only possible legal and social condition for the creative health of serious religion itself.”

Firsts Persons Important Religion Social Creative Rights Conditions Serious Speech Constitution Setting Settings Alternatives Guarantees Amendments First Amendment Social Conditions

Book:Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock

Source: Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock

“The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.”

Trying Firsts Kind Internet Protect Speech Amendments Free Speech Freedom Of Speech Offensive First Amendment Bans

Author:Mike Godwin

“The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority.”

Firsts Whole Government Certain Example Exercise Speech Authority Areas Constitution Congress Limitation Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Second Amendment Preventing

Author:Clarence Thomas

“Religion should be subject to commonsense appraisal and rational review, as openly discussible as, say, politics, art and the weather. The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state religion and from abridging freedom of speech. There is no reason why we should shy away from speaking freely about religion, no reason why it should be thought impolite to debate it, especially when, as so often happens, religious folk bring it up on their own and try to impose it on others.”

“Every public elementary school ought to welcome Good News Clubs. Parents appreciate them; children love them; and the First Amendment protects them. The First Amendment requires that similar groups be provided with equal treatment. Religious speech is not a disability. It is our preeminent freedom.”

“The relevant part of the First Amendment here prohibits the making of any law, quote, "abridging the freedom of speech." And it's pretty well-established that speech comes in many forms.”

Firsts Wells Form Law Speech Relevant Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment

Author:Laura Sydell

“The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and software has been treated as a form of speech ever since. So if software code is speech, Apple says the First Amendment also means the government can't tell Apple what to say.”

Ifs Firsts Mean Has Beens Government Form Speech Court Treated Appeals Code Apples Software Amendments First Amendment Circuits

Author:Laura Sydell

“The First Amendment of the US Constitution ... is an eloquent repudiation of the First Commandment's prohibition of religious freedom. It is also a repudiation of the Third Commandment's prohibition of freedom of speech. The Thirteenth Amendment repudiates the institution of slavery which is so cozily assumed by the Fourth and Tenth Protestant Commandments.”

“This [anti-terrorism bill] is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fourth Amendment protection of private property... Some of these provisions place more power in the hands of law enforcement than our Founding Fathers could have dreamt and severely compromises the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. This bill, while crafted with good intentions, is rife with constitutional infringements I could not support.”

“I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas - whether that association be called a political party or not - marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country.”

“Donald Trump and the First Amendment - it's not a beautiful match. It's not a match made in heaven, you know, between the free speech rights that he has not defended and the freedom of the press which he has not defended. It's problematic.”

Knows Firsts Made Beautiful Heaven Rights Trump Speech Presses Amendments Free Speech First Amendment Freedom Of The Press

Author:Megyn Kelly

“I believe America went wrong in terms of respecting the First Amendment, the state of free speech on American college campuses and on the media and in academia.”

Firsts Believe States America I Believe Term Media College Speech Amendments Free Speech First Amendment Campus Academia College Campus

Author:Milo Yiannopoulos

“There are systemic, painful problems of globalization and de-industrialization that cannot be solved with a phone call or a tweet or an angry speech or trying to isolate the press and the first amendment. Sooner or later, the Donald Trump show, which is a projection of strength and authority, will have to deliver to his voters. And if he doesn't, in very real terms, if he can't supersede a situation where a president cut the unemployment rate in half, if he can't do better, if he can't open factories and all the rest that he's promised, then I think he's in trouble.”

“Of the five rights listed in the First Amendment. - religion, speech, press, assembly, petition - the very first right protected is freely exercising our religion.”

Firsts Five Rights Exercise Speech Presses Amendments Protected First Amendment Assembly Petitions

Author:Steve Daines

“Our Supreme Court has lifted the practice of buying legislation to the level of a constitutional principle by repeatedly protecting corporate spending for and against political candidates, as well as promises and threats of such spending to bribe and blackmail such candidates, by appeal to the free-speech clause of the First Amendment.”

“I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class. I begin to feel like most Americans don't understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the citizen to speak out.”

Feels Firsts Ideas Lasts Speak Responsibility Class Generations Citizens Speech Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Civics Speaks Out

Author:Roger Ebert

“The First Amendment is really at the very core of political speech, and political speech is at the core of the First Amendment. So, we want to be very careful to make sure that candidates for office are free to express their views so that people will make an informed choice. We don't want them holding back, and sort of concealing their views and then disclosing them afterwards.”

People Want Firsts Political Choices Views Speech Office Careful Core Candidates Amendments First Amendment Concealing Holding Back Political Speeches

Author:Alex Kozinski

“Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.”

Whole Games Freedom Speech Balls Censorship Free Speech Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Freedom Of Expression Ball Games Ballgame Limiting Freedom Of Expression Freedom To Read Freedom Of Speech And Expression

Author:Salman Rushdie

“The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.”

Firsts Form Hate Groups Speech Including Amendments Remarks First Amendment Poisonous Hate Speech Ku Klux Klan

Author:Salman Rushdie

“We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don't have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character.”

Feels Firsts Country Character Running Opinion Integrity Speech Agree Circles Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Integrity And Character Limiting Freedom Of Expression

Author:Luke Scott

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

Science Nations Freedom Liberty Speech Independent Censorship Free Speech Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Freedom And Liberty Freedom Of Thought Prohibition Freedom Liberty Freedom Of The Press Political Will Freedom To Read Liberty Of Speech

Book:The Real Benjamin Franklin

Source: The Real Benjamin Franklin

“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

“If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”

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