William Borah Quotes

• Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.

  William Borah

  Independent, Government, Differences

  William Edgar Borah (1936). “Bedrock: Views on Basic National Problems”

  50 Copy quote

• Peace purchased at the cost of any part of our national integrity is fit only for slaves, and even when purchased for such a price it is a delusion, for it cannot last.

  William Borah

  Freedom, Integrity, Cost

  11 Copy quote

• There is nothing that dies so hard and rallies so often as intolerance.

  William Borah

  Intolerance, Dies, Hard

  8 Copy quote

• I look upon those who would deny others the right to urge and argue their position, however irksome and pernicious they may seem, as intellectual and moral cowards.

  William Borah

  Intellectual, Coward, Looks

  9 Copy quote

• No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right.

  William Borah

  Heart, Law, Brain

  11 Copy quote

• There is nothing that dies so hard and rallies so often as intolerance. The vices and passions which it summons to its support are the most ruthless and the most persistent harbored in the human breast. They sometimes sleep but they never seem to die. Anything, any extraordinary situation, any unnecessary controversy, may light those fires again and plant in our republic that which has destroyed every republic which undertook to nurse it.

  William Borah

  Passion, Sleep, Fire

  8 Copy quote

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