Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [381-400] of 502 Speech quotesSpeech QuotesSpeech Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Make no mistake about it: the labeling of someone’s language as ‘sexist’ involves a political judgment and implies the desirability of a particular sociological doctrine. One may be in favor of that doctrine (as I believe I am) but it is quite another matter to force writers by edicts and censorship into accepting it.~ Neil Postman Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.~ Proverb Our republic and its press will rise and fall together.~ Joseph Pulitzer The weapon of the dictator is not so much propaganda as censorship.~ Terence H. Qualter Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted (in his dissent of Abington Township, 1963) ‘if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Permission for such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit them is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.'~ Ronald Reagan We even had to pass a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to school rooms after classes that a Young Marxist Society … would already enjoy.~ Ronald Reagan The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained.~ Stanley Forman Reed Aside from the collective gain that comes from that free interchange of ideas, there is a direct personal value for the individual concerned. Each of us should have the right to speak his thoughts and to hear the thoughts of others…~ Charles Rembar To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.~ Ernest Renan The media, far from being a conspiracy to dull the political sense of the people, could be viewed as a conspiracy to disguise the extent of political indifference.~ David Riesman We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.~ Eleanor Roosevelt If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perception.~ Franklin D. Roosevelt The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.~ Franklin D. Roosevelt To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.~ Theodore Roosevelt Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.~ Theodore Roosevelt During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power...~ Edward Alsworth Ross The worst, most insidious effect of censorship is that, in the end, it can deaden the imagination of the people. Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument.~ Salman Rushdie Freedom of speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.~ Salman Rushdie Free societies…are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom’s existence.~ Salman Rushdie It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living.~ Bertrand Russell Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print