Free Speech Quotes - Page 9

• Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

  George Santayana

  Dignity, Internet, Should

  "Quotations for Our Time" edited by Laurence J. Peter, 1977.

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• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans”, p.400

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• Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.

  Samuel Adams

  Perseverance, Rights, Suffering

  Essay in The Boston Gazette under the pseudonym "Candidus", October 14, 1771.

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• Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Laughter, Law, Internet

  Du Contrat Social bk. 3, ch. 15 (1762)

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• The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

  Paula Poundstone

  Reading, Book, Thought Provoking

  "Richard Lewis, Julie Halston, Paula Poundstone and More Set for August Comedy Nights at Bay Street". www.broadwayworld.com. July 27, 2016.

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• I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy.

  Walt Whitman

  Military, Giving, Democracy

  Walt Whitman (2015). “Leaves of Grass: Top Classic Poetry”, p.76, 谷月社

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• What yells out at the US public . . . is the incandescent hypocrisy of so many people who, in the name of free speech, persecute its practitioners if their opinions are conservative.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Names, Hypocrisy, People

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• Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don't even arise.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Science, Technology, Decision

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.219, Verso

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• Official truths are often powerful illusions.

  John Pilger

  Powerful, Sea, Internet

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.

  Corliss Lamont

  Atmosphere, Democracy, Liberty

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• Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion;.... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Religious, Teaching, School

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• We know what works: freedom works. We know what's right: freedom is right. We know how to secure a more and just and prosperous life for man on earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

  George H. W. Bush

  Exercise, Men, Presidential

  Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1989

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• There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust.

  Sophocles

  Justice, Unjust, Internet

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• Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior?

  James B. Donovan

  Jesus, Eight, Years

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• Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don't know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don't know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting "shut up"... when they aren't prissily imploring everyone to be "civil."

  Ann Althouse

  Hate, Feet, America

  "Why does the left hate free speech?" by Ann Althouse, althouse.blogspot.ru. February 3, 2011.

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• I feel the best way to ensure Americans' freedom is to tighten restrictions on that freedom in any way possible. Only through wiretaps, illegal searches and seizures, unfettered government intrusion, a controlled media and a complete crackdown on free speech can we ensure the liberties of all people.

  John Ashcroft

  Stupid, Government, Media

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• There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.

  Aldo Leopold

  Nature, Flower, Opportunity

  "A Sand County almanac, and Sketches here and there: illus. by Charles W. Schwartz".

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• Free speech includes the right to not speak.

  Jimmy Wales

  Speech, Speak

  "Why Wikipedia went down at midnight". Interview with John D. Sutter, www.cnn.com. January 18, 2012.

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• The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Witty, Government, Political

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.14, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Conservative pundits have a remarkable amount of free speech.

  Michael Pare

  Political, Speech, Conservative

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• In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce.

  Tim Robbins

  Country, People, Speech

  "A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation". Tim Robbins' speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., archive.commondreams.org. April 15, 2003.

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• In America-as elsewhere-free speech is confined to the dead.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, America, Speech

  Mark Twain (194?). “Mark Twain's notebook”

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• You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.

  Donna Shalala

  Believe, College, Ideas

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• I was invited to give the Freshmen Convocation at Florida Gulf Coast University on October 24, 2004. My book The Open Space of Democracy had been selected as one of the "common readers" for the university's 1,050 entering freshmen. On October 6, William Merwin, the president of Florida Gulf Coast, made the decision to "postpone" the convocation. He cited negative statements I had made in print about President Bush. If our colleges and universities are no longer the champions and protectors of free speech, then no voice in this country is safe.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Country, Book, College

  Source: progressive.org

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• For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.

  Naomi Wolf

  Cowboy, Enemy, Guilt

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