Quotessence
Home / Topics / Speech Quotes

Speech Quotes

Browse 3446 quotes about Speech.

Related topics

Freedom Of SpeechPeopleIfsFree SpeechMenThinkingGivingSpeakLanguageSilenceKnowsFirstsWorldWritingShouldHumansSaidWayWellsActionDoeMindPoliticalMayMeanPresidentNeedsWantUseBelieveMadeYearsKindLongHas BeensCountryGovernmentSoundBookFormIdeasLibertySpeakersStatesPressesLittlesHeartTryingAmendmentsFirst AmendmentStillsTwoHeardPersonsRightsAmericaFeelsLyingTalkingVoiceEndsExpressionMatterRealCommunicationFreedomConversationTongueArtImportantWarFactsWholeCensorshipFiguresUsedCommonLimiting Freedom Of ExpressionPoliticsSeemsSilence IsSometimesTogetherBodyFeelingsLawOpinionAbleDifferentMomentsTodayTrumpWould BeDemocracyHardI CanGivenHateRememberChildrenmore

Speech Quotes

“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.”

PeopleThinkingFirstsBelieveAgeArtistGrowing UpRecordsGrowingYouthBecomingSpeechResponsibleObligationAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechAssuredFirst Amendment
Author:Ja Rule
Create image

“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.”

FirstsGovernmentPoliticalFoundSpeakCommunicationActivitySpeechLateConcernedDancerAmendmentsShelterFreedom Of SpeechCropsFirst AmendmentPreventingExpressiveFramers
Book:With a Happy Eye, But...: America and the World, 1997--2002
Create image

“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.”

FirstsMeanMadeLawLanguageSimpleRoomsSpeechPressesCongressAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechFirst AmendmentInferenceSimple Words
Author:Hugo Black
Create image

“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.”

IfsFirstsMightDarknessDoorsStyleKeysSpeechConstitutionSaintTyrannyGrantedAmendmentsSunlightFirst AmendmentSaint Paul
Book:Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
Create image

“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.”

FirstsStatesGovernmentLawPresidentUnitedUnited StatesRightsEqualSpeechConstitutionProtectionAgencyAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechAgain And AgainViolationFirst AmendmentAssemblyState GovernmentUnited States GovernmentEqual ProtectionAlbanyFreedom Of AssemblyFourteenth Amendment
Author:Howard Zinn
Create image

“I don't particularly care about having [my characters] talk realistically, that doesn't mean very much to me. Actually, a lot of people speak more articulately than some critics think, but before the 20th century it really didn't occur to many writers that their language had to be the language of everyday speech. When Wordsworth first considered that in poetry, it was considered very much of a shocker. And although I'm delighted to have things in ordinary speech, it's not what I'm trying to perform myself at all: I want my characters to get their ideas across, and I want them to be articulate.”

PeopleThinkingWantWritingTryingFirstsMeanIdeasCharacterCareSpeakLanguageCenturySpeechOrdinaryCriticsEveryday20th CenturyDelightedWordsworth
Author:Louis Auchincloss
Create image

“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.”

WayFirstsActionLawNumbersKnownStudentsSpeechBehaviorConstitutionStrategyBottomDespiteDistinctionAmendmentsManipulateFirst AmendmentInconsequential
Author:Stanley Fish
Create image

“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.”

FirstsMayUseIssuesPolicySeriousExpressionCostDemandSpeechBenefitsProtectionDebateDiscussionMinoritiesMarijuanaAmendmentsFrankFreedom Of SpeechWiserFirst AmendmentViewpointsSuppressionSerious Issues
Author:John Paul Stevens
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

“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.”

FirstsKindFactsLibertyRightsSpeechPressesThreatActiveAll KindsAgendasAggressiveAssociationAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechThreatenedHomosexualFirst AmendmentFreedom Of The PressFreedom Of ReligionThreats To Liberty
Author:Bryan Fischer
Create image

“The first thing that strikes you about Timothy Murphys verse is the palpable texture of his line - that sound of sense practised by that other American poet-farmer, Robert Frost. And just as Murphys ear is trained on the rhythms of local speech and classical epigram, his eye holds fast on the image. This is an undeluded vision, sometimes bleak, often funny, and never less than painstakingly crafted.”

FirstsSometimesEyeSoundLinesVisionPoetSpeechEarsStrikesLocalsRhythmHis EyesFarmersVersesTextureFrostBleakEpigramsHold Fast
Author:Michael Donaghy
Create image

“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.”

FirstsPersonsImportantReligionSocialCreativeRightsConditionsSeriousSpeechConstitutionSettingSettingsAlternativesGuaranteesAmendmentsFirst AmendmentSocial Conditions
Book:Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock
Create image

“It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance.”

PeopleFirstsPeaceUnitedRightsSpeechPressesAccidentsProtestArticlesCoincidenceAssuranceIdenticalInseparableGrievancePetitionsRedress
Author:Wiley Blount Rutledge
Create image

“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.”

FirstsWholeGovernmentCertainExampleExerciseSpeechAuthorityAreasConstitutionCongressLimitationAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechFirst AmendmentSecond AmendmentPreventing
Author:Clarence Thomas
Create image

“By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust.”

PeopleMenWritingMindFirstsLongHas BeensBookDifferentAbleActionMovingIndividualBlackInfluenceTearsSpeechPagesTraditionMarkIndividualityBonesDustLong AgoPersistDifferent PlaceDifferent Times
Author:Julian Huxley
Create image

“The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man's self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.”

IfsMenMindFirstsSelfShowsTurnsFallThreeGoes OnSpeechAdvantageFairsThirdsLaysIntentionSurpriseDeceptionOppositionManifestFreedom Of SpeechReservesDeclarationRetreatFreedom Of ThoughtAdverseSimulationLet Him Go
Book:Essays
Create image

“We must take the best from the left and the best from the right to devise new strategies for the global twenty-first century. The reluctance of liberal professors to speak out against rampant abuses committed on their side (e.g., suppression of free speech, the excesses of women's studies and French theory) has simply increased the power of the right.”

FirstsLeftSpeakSidesStudyCenturyTheorySpeechAbuseTwentiesStrategyCommittedProfessorsExcessFree SpeechSpeaks OutSuppressionReluctance
Book:Vamps & Tramps: New Essays
Create image

“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.”

ShouldTryingFirstsArtStatesReasonHappensLawReligiousSubjectsSpeechCongressFolksDebateRationalWeatherReason WhyShyNo ReasonReviewsAmendmentsRecallsFreedom Of SpeechFirst AmendmentAppraisal
Author:Jeffrey Tayler
Create image

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

IfsKnowsMenFirstsWellsReasonLibertyOpinionClearRightsSpeechInjusticeStrikesTyrantsMeaninglessSpeakersDreadFree SpeechThronesDominion
Book:Frederick Douglass: 100 Quotes on Bondage, Perseverance, and Redemption
Create image

“We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?”

IfsWorldGivingFirstsWarHomeAmericaPoorOpinionDemocracyBrokenSafeSpeechIndependentPressesFree SpeechBrutalUniformsAssemblyGangstersOutragedBroken UpFree PressOverbearing
Author:Emma Goldman
Create image

“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.”

FirstsChildrenSchoolParentReligiousGroupsOughtProtectEqualSpeechNewsAppreciateClubsWelcomeTreatmentDisabilityAmendmentsGood NewsFirst AmendmentElementary SchoolChildren LoveEqual Treatment
Author:Mathew Staver
Create image

“The best stuff that Cicero wrote, in the first century in Rome, were the Philippics, a series of speeches that he delivered against Marc Antony, whom he thought was irreparably dismantling the Republic of Rome. Those speeches are powerful because they're not only really pointed but they're thrillingly beautiful - and that's precisely what made them dangerous: the fact that people wanted to read them.”

PeopleFirstsMadeFactsWantedBeautifulStuffPowerfulCenturyDangerousSpeechSeriesRepublicRomeAntony
Author:John D'Agata
Create image