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William J. Brennan, Jr.7 quotes
Whether, to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1957All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance—unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion—have the full protection of the guaranties... But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance... We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1957We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1957The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with "actual malice"—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1964The chilling effect upon the exercise of First Amendment rights may derive from the fact of the prosecution, unaffected by the prospects of its success or failure. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1965And, precisely because it is our flag that is involved, one's response to the flag-burner may exploit the uniquely persuasive power of the flag itself. We can imagine no more appropriate response to burning a flag than waving one's own, no better way to counter a flag burner's message than by saluting the flag that burns, no surer means of preserving the dignity even of the flag that burned than by—as one witness here did—according its remains a respectful burial. We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1989All 7 quotes →John Stuart Mill4 quotes
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. — John Stuart Mill · 1859An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer. — John Stuart Mill · 1859If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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 · 1859The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. — John Stuart Mill · 1859John Adams2 quotes
The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible to destroy, the freedom of thinking, speaking and writing. — John Adams · 1765When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists: but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more. — John Adams · 1817John Milton2 quotes
If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man... And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals, that whisper softness in chambers? — John Milton · 1644Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. — John Milton · 1644Louis Brandeis2 quotes
Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. — Louis Brandeis · 1927Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. — Louis Brandeis · 1927Benjamin Cardozo1 quote
Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. — Benjamin Cardozo · 1937Benjamin Franklin1 quote
That if all Printers were determin’d not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed. — Benjamin Franklin · 1731Franklin D. Roosevelt1 quote
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression-everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... Everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... Anywhere in the world. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1941George Orwell1 quote
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. — George Orwell · 1944George Washington1 quote
If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind; reason is of no use to us—the freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter. — George Washington · 1783Heinrich Heine1 quote
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. — Heinrich Heine · 1821Hugo Black1 quote
An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. — Hugo Black · 1964Ian McEwan1 quote
It's worth remembering this: freedom of expression sustains all the other freedoms we enjoy. — Ian McEwan · 2015James Madison1 quote
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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — James Madison · 1789James Russell Lowell1 quote
And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak. — James Russell Lowell · 1848Jefferson Smith1 quote
Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I'm free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn't, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that. — Jefferson Smith · 1939John Morley1 quote
You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him. — John Morley · 1874Learned Hand1 quote
Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between tire two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government. — Learned Hand · 1917Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.1 quote
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1919Salman Rushdie1 quote
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. — Salman Rushdie · 1990Sherman Alexie1 quote
Censorship of any form punishes curiosity. — Sherman Alexie · 2012Tacitus1 quote
These times have the rare good fortune that you may think what you like and say what you think. — Tacitus · 110 BC