Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2007-01-28 Jan 26, 2007Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.~ Alan DershowitzWe believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture.~ American Library AssociationThe greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion.~ Justice Charles Evans Hughes Jan 25, 2007Every time I criticize what I consider to be excesses or faults in the news business, I am accused of repression, and the leaders of various media professional groups wave the First Amendment as they denounce me. That happens to be my amendment, too. It guarantees my free speech as it does their freedom of the press… There is room for all of us – and for our divergent views – under the First Amendment.~ Spiro AgnewIf 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 OrwellThere is no such thing as an achieved liberty: like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.~ Justice Robert H. Jackson Jan 24, 2007To permit every interest group, especially those who claim to be victimized by unfair expression, their own legislative exceptions to the First Amendment so long as they succeed in obtaining a majority of legislative votes in their favor demonstrates the potentially predatory nature of what defendants seek through this Ordinance.~ Sarah Evans BarkerThe American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech and practically construct them into syntax.~ Thomas PaineGovernment cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.~ Justice Clarence Thomas Jan 23, 2007They certainly are not great writers, but they speak their country's language and they make themselves heard.~ Alexis de TocquevilleI am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence.~ Edward R. MurrowNone of us would trade freedom of expression for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it.~ Hubert H. Humphrey Jan 22, 2007Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.~ First Amendment in the Bill of RightsThe liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our history abundantly attest.~ Justice Charles Evans HughesIn societies like the American and West European where the dynamics of energy come from freedom and where the climate and the whole ethos are those of freedom, censorship is bound to be at worst, stupid; at best, futile; and always, to some degree, inconsonant with the character of the society as a whole.~ Max Lerner Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print