Thoughts on Freedom of Speech

After participating in a political debate with some friends, I began to contemplate freedom of speech. It is a right that defines the essence of what it is to be an American: the right to choose.

Here are some fabulous quotes that I found.

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 Commager

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. ~Tommy Smothers

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire

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, On Liberty, 1859

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an 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, On Liberty, 1859

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. ~George Bernard Shaw,

The test of democracy is freedom of criticism. ~David Ben-Gurion

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-Adrien Helvétius

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For 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. ~John F. Kennedy

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