Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [21-40] of 173 Dissent quotesDissent QuotesDissent Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion... In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.~ Henry Steele Commager Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.~ Henry Steele Commager Nobody should be compelled to respect an ideology that doesn’t respect them.~ Pat Condell No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being...~ Benjamin Constant We must pity the poor wretched, timid soul who is too faint-hearted to resist his oppressors. He sings the song of the dammed: “I can’t fight back; I have too much to lose; I own too much property; I have worked too hard to get what I have; They will put me out of business if I resist; I might go to jail; I have my family to think about.” Such poor miserable creatures have misplaced values and are hiding their cowardice behind pretended family responsibility -- blindly refusing to see that the most glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is liberty; and that the only true security is liberty.~ Marvin Cooley To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you like everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.~ e. e. cummings There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.~ Clarence S. Darrow The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.~ Clarence S. Darrow I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.~ Alexis de Tocqueville Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.~ Eugene Debs But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.~ Declaration of Independence Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients.~ Alan Dershowitz Freedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent…The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words.~ John G. Diefenbaker I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.~ John G. Diefenbaker The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.~ William O. Douglas The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.~ William O. Douglas The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.~ William O. Douglas ‘Balanced’ is a code for ‘denied’: a right to free speech that must be ‘balanced’ against so exhaustive a list of other supposed values means a right that can be exercised only when those in power judge that the speech in question is innocuous to them.~ Ronald Dworkin The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force.~ Max Eastman Restless is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress.~ Thomas A. Edison Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print