Free Speech Quotes - Page 21

• The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. . . . There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

  Margot Asquith

  Kings, Ideas, People

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• We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech

  Susan Brownmiller

  Women, Names, Female

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• To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

  William James

  Giving Up, Blessed, Deception

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• Whatever doubt there may be as to the quality or purpose of our free speech we certainly have ample volumes in production.

  Herbert Hoover

  Government, Presidential, Doubt

  Herbert Hoover (1938). “Addresses upon the American road”

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• Legislation needs a better reason than that lawyers like it, and that America does it.

  Lawrence Lessig

  America, Doe, Needs

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• Is this true or only clever?

  Augustine Birrell

  Inspirational, Clever, Internet

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• For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.

  Eric Ambler

  Science, Law, Internet

  Eric Ambler (2001). “A Coffin for Dimitrios”, Vintage

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• Occasionally, the book tells stories that would likely grate on senior management – but that is what free speech is all about.

  Rick Ungar

  Senior, Book, Stories

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• Supreme Court opinion notwithstanding, corporations are not defined as people under the Constitution, and free speech can hardly be called free when only the rich are heard.

  Warren Rudman

  People, Speech, Corporations

  "Republicans losing their way on campaign finance reform" by Warren Rudman, www.washingtonpost.com. February 5, 2010.

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• Free speech is what we all have and is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Academic freedom refers to what happens in the university, particularly in the classroom, and to the importance of the teacher having the right to teach and share what he or she has learned, has proven her competence to teach, having gone through a series of tests and certifications including research and writing to demonstrate her abilities and knowledge.

  Joan Wallach Scott

  Teacher, Writing, Constitution

  Source: www.salon.com

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• The FBI wanted us to introduce the 1994 Digital Telephony bill today and I said absolutely not. They have to understand they have a Vermonter as the Chairman Of the Technology and Law committee and that we Vermonters respect our privacy.

  Patrick Leahy

  Technology, Law, Bills

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• Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

  George Orwell

  Years, Forever, Nineteen

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In order to keep up with the criminals and to protect our national security, the solution is clear: we need legislation to ensure that telephone companies and other carriers provide law enforcement with access to this new technology.

  Louis J. Freeh

  Technology, Order, Law

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• I used to feel like I was a flea on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Now I feel I might be a small yapping poodle on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  Phil Zimmermann

  Poodles, Might, Fleas

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• Information wants to be free. Believe it.

  Bruce Sterling

  Believe, Want, Information

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• Society has recognized over time that certain kinds of scientific inquiry can endanger society as a whole and has applied either directly, or through scientific/ethical constraints, restrictions on the kind and amount of research that can be done in those areas.

  Bobby Ray Inman

  Inquiry, Done, Research

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• There is a very real and critical danger that unrestrained public discussion of cryptologic matters will seriously damage the ability of this government to conduct signals intelligence and the ability of this government to carry out its mission of protecting national security information from hostile exploitation.

  Bobby Ray Inman

  Real, Government, Information

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• Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter. It is, in many ways, the most powerful form of free speech because it is aimed at those in power, or those whose ideas would spread hate. It is the canary in the coalmine, a cultural thermometer, and it always has to push, push, push the boundaries of society to see how much it’s grown.

  Joe Randazzo

  Powerful, Laughter, Hate

  "Former 'Onion' editor: Freedom of speech cannot be killed" by Joe Randazzo, www.msnbc.com. January 7, 2015.

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• There happened in the Middle Ages what has happened so often since then. Those who were the beneficiaries of the established order were bent on defending it, not so much, perhaps, because it guaranteed their interests, as because it seemed to them indispensable to the preservation of society.

  Henri Pirenne

  Order, Age, Internet

  Henri Pirenne (1956). “Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade”, p.169, Princeton University Press

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• People think I watch TV too much, but they are wrong. There is a huge difference between merely "watching" TV and learning to respond aggressively to it. The difference, for most people, is the difference between the living and dying of their own brains.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Thinking, Differences, People

  Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “Better Than Sex”, p.52, Pan Macmillan

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• The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig...The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Children, Book, Reading

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• Our fear of technology is really a fear of empowerment. We now have the ability to design the reality we live in, and we have to step up to the occasion.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Technology, Reality, Design

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• In Turkey it was always 1952, in Malaysia 1937; Afghanistan was 1910 and Bolivia 1949. It is 20 years ago in the Soviet Union, 10 in Norway, five in France. It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan.

  Paul Theroux

  Japan, Next Week, Years

  Paul Theroux (2012). “The Lower River”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There are no bad haircuts in cyberspace.

  Dave Barry

  Cyberspace, Internet, Bad Haircuts

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• Frankly, the people probably most interested in having computer lists on disk are junk mail vendors and solicitors.

  Karen Hughes

  People, Junk, Mail

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