Religion should be subject to commonsense appraisal and rational review, as openly discussible as, say, politics, art and the weather. The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state...

Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a...

Your true freedom is making your own decisions.

Too many adults wish to ‘protect’ teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.

Confidence is knowing who you are and not changing it a bit because of someone’s version of your reality is not their reality.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

freedom of speech”. How is corporate control freedom of speech? And what rights did our forefathers grant corporations, anyway?

I am afflicted with the power of thought, which is a heavy curse. The less a person thinks and inquires regarding the why and the wherefore and the justice of things, when dragging along through...

If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy … to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these...

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

The fact is that 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...

When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe… that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas– that the best test of truth...

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”[The One Un-American Act, Speech to the Author’s Guild Council...

It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf, perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do.

I know it when I see itJacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964), concurring op.

Let your eyes see what they see, not what others want you to see. Let your ears hear what they naturally hear, not what others want you to hear. Let your mouth speak your mind...

Scandaliser est un droit. Être scandalisé est un plaisir.

So long as they don’t get violent, I want to let everyone say what they wish, for I myself have always said exactly what pleased me.

Freedom is an absolute state, there is no such thing as being half-free.

Hypocrites get offended by the truth.

The height of human achievement and glory, Muhammad.

Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it,...

This book is irrelevant to Goodreads because you can’t buy it on Amazon. Also it talks about oppression, censorship etc. and no one really likes reading about that because it’s boring. Yet, let me tell...

Freedom is an expensive gift always worth fighting for. Even if it costs us!

The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions...

Democracy was supposed to champion freedom of speech, and yet the simple rules of table decorum could clamp down on the rights their forefathers had fought and died for.

problem” is to vex, annoy, threaten or harrass them, you are almost certainly a bigger asshole.6. You may also be twelve.7. You are not responsible for anyone else’s actions or karma, but you are responsible...

A freedom given up is not so easily regained.

Honesty is vulnerability. Sadly, not everyone can handle someone’s honesty. However, lying allows people to be comfortable.

EQUAL RIGHTS and FREE DISCUSSION will be fearlessly advocated and maintained. Sectarian dogmas or tenets will be investigated and compared.

It is not certain whether the effects of totalitarianism upon verse need be so deadly as its effects on prose. There is a whole series of converging reasons why it is somewhat easier for a...

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a...

How the press, for example, loves to brag to its victims— its readers—about its freedom. Yes, the press may be free to lie and distort and suppress and deceive and malign, but is it free...

Oil may run out, liquidity may dry up, but as long as ink flows freely, the next chapter of Life will continue to be written.

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...

Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don’t even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be...

Journalism can be lethal

The sheriff listened uneasily to a sound, very uncommon at elections, of the populace expressing an opinion contrary to that of the lord of the soil.

A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power...

Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear.

Regrets are the last words you speak to your loved ones when you die and the one thing we all fear when we live. I’d rather regret the things I’ve done and said than regret...

The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right...

If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if...

Imagination sees the complete reality, – it is where past, present and future meet… Imagination is limited neither to the reality which is apparent – nor to one place. It lives everywhere. It is at...

Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to...

Free speech means the right to shout ‘theatre’ in a crowded fire.

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.

Every man — in the development of his own personality — has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of...