H. L. Mencken Quotes About Free Speech

• Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Freedom, Political

• My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.

  H. L. Mencken

  Profound, Effort, Speech

  H.L. Mencken (2011). “My Life as Author and Editor”, p.29, Vintage

• I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.

  H. L. Mencken

  Thinking, Racism, People

• Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted

  H. L. Mencken

  Democracy, Speech, Free Speech

• 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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Believe, Thinking

• The common notion that free speech prevails in the United States always makes me laugh.

  H. L. Mencken

  Laughing, United States, Speech

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.635, Vintage

• The American people, I am convinced, really detest free speech. At the slightest alarm they are ready and eager to put it down.

  H. L. Mencken

  People, Alarms, Speech

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Diary of H. L. Mencken”, p.635, Vintage

You May Also Like:

George Jean Nathan

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Clarence Darrow

Sinclair Lewis

Ambrose Bierce

John T. Scopes