Free Speech Quotes - Page 10

• I voted fror Trump because I genuinely thought that Hillary Clinton was a threat to the American experiment. I usually do not talk in those big terms, but she did not believe in free speech, her hatred of the Citizens United ruling indicated to me that she believed that speech should be controlled. I voted for Trump, 5% of my mind was thinking the guy is Hitler. There was a five percent chance that I am making a huge mistake.

  Andrew Klavan

  Mistake, Believe, Thinking

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?

  Frank Zappa

  Song, Dental Floss, Teeth

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• The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.

  Earl Warren

  Heart, Expression, Censorship

  Dissent in Times Film Corp. v. City of Chicago 365 U.S. 43, 1961.

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• Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

  Daniel Webster

  Truth, Lying, Liars

  Daniel Webster (1830). “Speeches and Forensic Arguments”, p.487

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• The political function of 'the right of free speech' is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forcible suppression - not to guarantee them the support, advantages, and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.

  Ayn Rand

  Support, Political, Minorities

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.190, Penguin

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• The deadliest bullshit is odorless, and transparent.

  William Gibson

  Bullshit, Internet, Transparent

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• I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.

  Fred Wilson

  Thinking, Speech, Censorship

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• Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech.

  George Edward Woodberry

  Speech, Form, Aesthetic

  George Edward Woodberry (1914). “Two Phases of Criticism, Historical and Aesthetic: Lectures Delivered on the Larwill Foundation of Kenyon College, May Seventh and Eighth, 1913”

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• When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

  John Adams

  Freedom, Laughter, Writing

  Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 15 July 1817

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• You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow.

  Julian Baggini

  Views, Issues, People

  "Speakers' corner" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. May 23, 2008.

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• If you have an internet service provider that's capable of slowing down other sites, or putting other sites out of business, or favoring their own friends and affiliates and customers who can pay for fast lanes, that's a horrible infringement on free speech. It's censorship by media monopolies. It's tragic: here we have a technology, the internet, that's capable really of being the town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks, and we are letting it be taken over by a few gatekeepers. This is a first amendment issue; it's free speech versus corporate censorship.

  Michael Copps

  Taken, Technology, Democracy

  Source: www.salon.com

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• Everything has become very corporate and very careful. Before we had a real democracy going and there were a lot of freedoms and now there's this terrorism thing that everybody's focused on, which is really a boondoggle in my opinion. It's just an excuse to clamp down on people's free speech. And corporations intimidate people and everybody's gotten intimidated and that's really what it is, and they just keep going along. It's almost like - a little bit like that Charlie Chaplin movie, Modern Times, or 1984, Orwell

  Don McLean

  Real, People, Democracy

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• When people try to stop free speech, stop people from talking, it creates pressure in the system that might cause people to act out.

  John S. Dickerson

  People, Trying

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...

  George Bernard Shaw

  Power, Cynical, Belief

  "Music in London, 1890-94: Criticisms Contributed Week by Week to The World, Volume 27 (The World (18 July 1894))". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1931.

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• 

  There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

  Andrew Jackson

  Patriotic, Government, Evil

  Veto Message on Bank Bill, 10 July 1832

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• There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

  Ken Olsen

  Funny, Business, Stupid

  "The 10 Stupidest Things Ever Said By Tech's Smartest People" by Dylan Love, www.businessinsider.com. April 17, 2013.

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• Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.

  Liu Xiaobo

  Mother, Truth, Freedom

  "Liu Xiaobo: 'No Enemies, No Hatred,' Only Courage". Statement prepared for court, www.npr.org. February 16, 2012.

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• Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Whom are we calling terrorists here?

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Thoughtful, People, Feminist

  "And our flag was still there" by Barbara Kingsolver, www.sfgate.com. September 25, 2001.

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• Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; but the denial stays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Truth, Freedom, Men

  Charles Bradlaugh's speech at Hall of Science (circa 1880), as quoted in Annie Besant "Annie Besant: An Autobiography", 1893.

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

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Freedom, Political

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• To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Leadership, Excellence, Vision

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.160, Penguin

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• Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Speech, Reason, Assault

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• A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that.

  Nick Harkaway

  Secret, Desire, Democracy

  Nick Harkaway (2012). “The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World”, p.145, Vintage

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• Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Witty, Baby

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• In the United States, unlike any other advanced democracy, money really talks. Our Supreme Court has said that spending money on politicians is a form of free speech. No other court has said that.

  T.R. Reid

  Democracy, Politician, Supreme Court

  Source: www.pbs.org

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