Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2005-11-03 Nov 3, 2005[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve it’s high purpose when it indices a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with things as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for understanding.~ Justice Potter StewartIf 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 laws exist to protect them.~ George OrwellI have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.~ Thomas Paine Nov 2, 2005Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying “No” to any authority -- literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.~ Ignazio SiloneTo require conformity in the appreciation of sentiments or the interpretation of language, or uniformity of thought, feeling, or action, is a fundamental error in human legislation -- a madness which would be only equaled by requiring all men to possess the same countenance, the same voice or the same stature.~ Josiah WarrenDisobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress had been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.~ Oscar Wilde Nov 1, 2005I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?~ D. H. LawrenceAll I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.~ H. L. MenckenLiberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.~ Paul Valéry Oct 31, 2005The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.~ General Douglas MacArthurProtection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.~ John Stuart MillThe individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.~ Rudyard Kipling Oct 28, 2005The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.~ Adam SmithWhen we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.~ George O'Neil[A]nd obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men and of the human frame, A mechanized automaton.~ Percy Bysshe Shelley Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print