Liberty of speech

“ Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius. ”

“ If liberty of speech is to be untrammeled from the grosser forms of constraint, then uniformity of opinion will be secured by a moral terrorism to which the respectability of society will give its thorough approval. Following the method of authority is the path of peace. ”

“ Recorder Barnard and City Judge Russell.
Liberty of speech is a right, paramount to that of every other consideration; it has been treasured as the key-stone to the great, unwritten Constitution of Britain and of our own land; it is the vital essence of our political existence, and its abuse has been judicially tolerated that the spirit shall be perpetuated. ”

“ Free speech is the gem of the human soul. Words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to those words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with light. In a Republic every individual tongue has a right to the general ear. In a Republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to all his fellow-citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. ”

“ Nothing, in this day, and especially in this country of free thought and liberty of speech, is taken for granted merely because it can lay claim to the honors of a great antiquity, or can number thousands or millions of adherents. ”

“ Another important personal right comprehended in the term personal liberty, and guarantied in the same article of the national constitution, and in the state constitutions, is the liberty of speech and of the press. Some of the monarchical governments of Europe prohibited the people from speaking against the sovereign or his government. ”

“ The liberty of expression, with a great nation, would become like that in a well-educated company, in which there is indeed freedom of speech, but not of clamor; or like that in an orderly senate, in which men who deserve to be heard, are heard in due time, and under determined restrictions. The degree of liberty you can rightly grant to a number of men is in the inverse ratio of their desire for it ”

“ Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. ”

“ SIR, 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 he does not hurt and control the right of another ”

“ This sacred privilege is so essential to free government, that the security of property; and the freedom of speech, always go together; and in those wretched countries where a man can not call his tongue his own, he can scarce call any thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of the nation, must begin by subduing the freedom of speech; a thing terrible to publick traitors. ”

“ Free speech and Freethought go together. If one is hampered the other languishes. What is the use of thinking if I may not express my thought? We claim equal liberty for all. The priest shall say what he believes and so shall the sceptic. ”

“ That dangers may sometimes arise from an abuse of the liberty of speech may be true, but it is so exceedingly delicate a thing to attempt to draw any line short of the direct incitement to specific illegal action, that the only course consistent with the genius of our institutions is to leave such abuses to their own natural remedy. ”

“ But when this is taken away, or, which is precisely the same thing so far as it respects the principle of civil liberty, when it is in the power of one or many, at its sovereign will and pleasure, to take it away, there is no longer any right. We have our tenure of speech as the slave has his—at the will of a master. ”

“ According to his view of the subject, “The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is the power, opportunity, or advantage that any one has to do as he pleases. Or, in other words, his being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting in any respect as he wills. And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call that by, is a person’s being hindered, or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise.” ”

“ The freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment. ”

“ They have spoken their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy Act, and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have profited. ”

“ The freedom of speech and press, and the right of public discussion upon all matters affecting the interest of the people, are the great constitutional safeguards of popular rights, liberty and happiness. ”

“ This is a Day of Affirmation, a celebration of liberty. We stand here in the name of freedom. At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups and states exist for that person's benefit. Therefore, the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any Western society.
The first element of this individual liberty is the freedom of speech: ”

“ We wonder how educated men who love freedom of speach, wilfully surrender the liberty of using their own speech and tamely submit to the tyranny of pedantocracy, while they complain of the vagaries of bureaucracy. ”

“ No one can appreciate more highly than ourself the freedom of speech, the liberty of conscience, and the liberty of the press.—Most sincerely do we believe ours to be one of the most happy forms of government ever established by men. But to see it distracted and rent to the center with local questions—questions which cannot be discussed without the sacrifice of human blood, calls forth the feelings and sympathy of every Christian heart. ”

“ It guarantees to us the liberty of the press, freedom of speech, liberty to seek for one's happiness, and to emigrate from State to State, and to enjoy all the privileges and rights that any man could in conscience ask for. ”

“ The People evidently felt that the greatest of all political principles—that of Human Liberty—was hanging on the issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus openly waged before the World—and they accordingly rose to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, vindicating by their very example the sacredness with which the Right of Free Speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere. ”

“ These are the men who can prate about liberty of speech and freedom of action,57 and yet, because they are supposed to subscribe their mite towards a person's maintenance,—every penny of which is doubly worked for,—would only allow his tongue to utter words in accordance with their own crude and contracted views, even though such words were a mere utterance of the most glaring untruths, and a flagrant violation of all the rules now in operation as between masters and servants in their respective relations to each other. ”

“ A public opinion which, almost without protest, accepts as just, adequate, beautiful, deserved and in fitting harmony with ideals of liberty and freedom of speech, a sentence of twenty years in prison for mere utterances, no matter what they may be, shows itself to be suffering from a kind of social derangement of values, a sort of social neurosis, that deserves analysis and comprehension. ”

“ And the cry that is now raised for freedom of speech and freedom of the press is raised by persons who have enjoyed those freedoms and been judged guilty of abusing them. What they demand, apparently, is the right to continue to circulate utterances that have been held inimical to the interests of the community. They demand not only freedom of speech. but freedom from the consequences of speech. They cry not for liberty, but for immunity from the responsibilities of liberty. ”

“ In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is 'freedom for the other fellow'. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: 'I detest what you say; ”

“ XVI. That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing and publishing their sentiments. That freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and ought not to be violated. ”

“ You really believe in freedom of speech if you are willing to allow it to men whose opinions seem to you wrong and even dangerous; . . . Compare Warren, "The New Liberty Under the Fourteenth Amendment," 39 Harvard Law Review, 431, 461. ”

“ You smile, and seem to say, 'Thou hast not yet lived the right to speak,—purchased by experience the freedom of speech.' I am both young and old. I believe I am younger than any just here, and I know more than they all do. ”

“ 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 for retrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. ”

“ The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax. ”

“ NATURALLY, with all people, the freedom of speech and thought are cardinal principles to be devoutly wished for, and sought. Whether this freedom of thought is expressed through the instrumentality of the press, or by our vocal organs on the stump, pulpit or rostrum, it is nevertheless a dear and precious privilege that we cannot afford to abuse, but one that we should use in the maintenance of good and wise principles. ”

“ Having found it I had a right to advocate it, and I did. The constitution of the United States, when it says: "The right of free speech shall not be abridged," gives every man the right to speak his thoughts. ”

“ During the last quarter of a century, more particularly, the English man-of-letters has been indulging, with an entirely new freedom, his national birthright of outspokenness, and during the last twelve months there have been no uncertain indications that this freedom of speech is degenerating into license which some of us cannot but view with regret and apprehension. ”

“ Literature is only preserved speech.
Freedom of speech is dear to our hearts; it is an easy privilege, and costs little—to the speaker. People are free to talk, privately and publicly, and free to write, privately and publicly. ”

“ Upon what fair and honest principle can one man, or set of men, claim the right to restrain and suppress the power of speech in another, or even the power of speaking upon paper, whatever that other may think right? If such a practice there be, it is the practice of tyranny; yet very few people seem to have any idea of the importance of free discussion. ”