Silencing Quotes

• Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

  Harry S. Truman

  Country, Fear, Voice

  United States. President (1945-1953 : Truman), Harry S. Truman (1961). “Harry S. Truman: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1945-53”

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• To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

  John Stuart Mill

  Hearing, Opinion, Assuming

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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

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• To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

  Barack Obama

  Hands, Deceit, Fists

  First Presidential Inaugural Address, Delivered 20 January 2009

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• The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

  John Stuart Mill

  Opportunity, Errors, Race

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

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• If this is how science operates, by silencing those who express opposing views rather than by debating with them, then science is dead and we are in a new era of the Inquisition.

  Graham Hancock

  Views, Eras, New Era

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• When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol.

  Joel Salatin

  Views, Giving, Minorities

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  If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

  John Stuart Mill

  Freedom, Philosophy, Differences

  On Liberty ch. 2 (1859)

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• You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price, you may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

  Alexander Litvinenko

  Life, Men, Silence

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• You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.

  Glenn Beck

  Rights, Common Sense, Freedom Of Speech

  Glenn Beck (2009). “Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

  John Stuart Mill

  Silence, Assumption, Absolute Certainty

  John Stuart Mill (2012). “On Liberty”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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• The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

  Max Lerner

  Ideas, America, Competition

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• Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.

  C. S. Lewis

  Hurt, Heart, Silence

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• If you stand still there is only one way to go, and that's backwards.

  Peter Shilton

  Soccer, Way, Censorship

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• Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

  Alan Barth

  Atheism, Liberty, Criticism

  "The Loyalty of Free Men". Book by Alan Barth, 1951.

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• After a war, the silencing of arms is not enough. Peace means respecting all rights. You can't respect one of them and violate the others. When a society doesn't respect the rights of its citizens, it undermines peace and leads it back to war.

  Maria Julia Hernandez

  Respect, War, Mean

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• 'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

  Carl Sagan

  Truth, Book, Opportunity

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.550, Ballantine Books

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• Menders of all times and places have taught that silencing the thoughts in our heads and opening to the experience of the body and emotions is the basis of all healing. It's the only means by which we can reclaim our true nature or feel the subtle cues telling us how to find our way through life.

  Martha Beck

  Mean, Healing, Body

  Martha Beck (2011). “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• The silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind's music, medicine and knowledge.

  Jay Griffiths

  Medicine, Tree, Mind

  "Fifty years on, the silence of Rachel Carson's spring consumes us" by Jay Griffiths, www.theguardian.com. September 25, 2012.

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• I loved meditation. I love it because that's where you find what your voice is. You cannot really find it easily in this culture. This culture is the noisiest culture ever, ever. I think the damage that it has done to people is in that realm of silencing them. They are overwhelmed by gadgets. They don't know what to think because they're so heavily programmed about what it is that they should want and should think.

  Alice Walker

  Thinking, Voice, People

  Source: alicewalkersgarden.com

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• GamerGate is about harassing, threatening and silencing women. Started that way, has been that way all along. Dont pretend otherwise.

  John Scalzi

  Way, Threatening, Has Beens

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• As for major obstacles keeping young Latinos from becoming filmmakers, I think our communities are still coming into their identities as storytellers. It's such an important identity to reclaim - it's how our ancestors kept our cultures alive. But a long history of silencing, invisibility, and marginalization has kept generations of Latinos from believing in themselves, from seeing themselves as agents of their own lives. I think there needs to be a focus on this aspect to help cultivate young Latinas to see themselves as cultural producers and defenders.

  Aurora Guerrero

  Believe, Thinking, Long

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• By silencing the mind, we can experience real peace. As long as various kinds of thoughts agitate the brain, we don't experience 100 percent peace.

  Henepola Gunaratana

  Real, Long, Brain

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• Hey, I liked my idea of bringer her along, but you already vetoed that idea, so now I'm resorting to Plan B, which is to interrogate her. And I am really looking forward to it. I used to play a game called interrogation with one of my old girlfriends where we-" "That's enough." Cinder raised her hand, silencing him.

  Marissa Meyer

  Girlfriend, Hands, Games

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• If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.

  Neil Gaiman

  Past, Voice, Library

  Neil Gaiman (2016). “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction”, p.14, HarperCollins

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