Free Speech Quotes

"We all have the right to comment about each other."

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

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

George Washington

"Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”

“When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist.”

“The most beautiful thing in the world is freedom of speech.”

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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

George Washington

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

George Orwell

“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practise either of them.”

Mark Twain

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

Søren Kierkegaard

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”

Noam Chomsky

“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

John Milton

“I raise up my voice, not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.”

Malala Yousafzai

“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

Frederick Douglass

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

John Stuart Mill

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

First Amendment