Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [41-60] of 502 Speech quotesSpeech QuotesSpeech Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.~ Justice Hugo L. Black The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.~ Justice Hugo L. Black The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.~ Justice Hugo L. Black Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.~ Justice Hugo L. Black What finally emerges from the ‘clear and present danger’ cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished…It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.~ Justice Hugo L. Black In the whole history of law and order, the biggest step was taken by primitive man when...the tribe sat in a circle and allowed only one man to speak at a time. An accused who is shouted down has no rights whatever.~ Curtis Bok I want a situation without censorship, because I do not want to be responsible for whatever they may say.~ Napoleon Bonaparte Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.~ William E. Borah Every bureaucrat has a constitutional right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It's a part of our freedom of speech...If people can understand what is being said in Washington, they might want to take over their own government again.~ Dr. Jim Boren Ideas are to literature what light is to painting.~ Paul Bourget Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people.~ Charles Bradlaugh The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment].~ Justice William J. Brennan If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.~ Justice William J. Brennan Free speech is about as good a cause as the world has ever known. But it…gets shoved aside in favor of things which at a given moment more vital…everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.~ Heywood Broun Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense.~ Norman O. Brown The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.~ Harry Browne The elegance of honesty needs no adornment.~ Merry Browne As the organized Left gained cultural power, it turned into a monster that found perpetual victimhood, combined with thought and speech control, the most efficient way to hold on to that power. Suddenly it was the Left, the protector of liberty, that was setting rules about what could and could not be said or even thought.~ Tammy Bruce Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print