Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!
– Thomas Carlyle
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
– Henry Steele
It is called the First Amendment. …Simple words marching in seried ranks. Compact, concise. To the point. Clear and pure. It’s freedom’s music.
– Jack Valenti
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
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
– Claude
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
– Sigmund Freud
Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.
– Thurgood Marshall
I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech.
– Nancie J. Carmody
A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.
– Albert Camus
Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
– Potter Stewart
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
– Voltaire
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
– Noam Chomsky
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
– Rebecca West
Take away the right to say “fuck” and you take away the right to say “fuck the government.”
– Lenny Bruce
If you can’t annoy somebody with what you write, I think there’s little point in writing.
– Kingsley Amis
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
– Voltaire
Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.
– Walter Cronkite
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.
– Tommy Smothers
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
– Heinrich Heine
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
– Voltaire