“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”
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Benjamin Franklin 183
American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p… 1706–1790Related quotes
Reported in Paul Froelich, Die Russische Revolution (1940)
Communication to the American Crime Study Commission (May 19, 1929)
Either/Or Part I, Swenson Translation p. 19 Variations include: People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
1840s, Either/Or (1843)
“Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.”
2000-09, Ai Weiwei, Nursing Head Wound, Sharpens Criticism, 2009
Variant: Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
Source: Desolation Road (1988), Chapter 31 (p. 162).
Variant: That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
Source: Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 97.
Context: In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
UKIP aiming to be 'radical, populist' party - Gerard Batten https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45593648 BBC News (21 September 2018)
2018
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
1780s
“A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.”