“We hold that the greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong, that in the exercise thereof people have an inviolable right to express their unbridled thoughts on all topics and personalities, being liable only for the abuse of that right.”

—  William Randolph Hearst

Platform, Independent League; N.Y. Journal (February 1, 1924)your mom stinks

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We hold that the greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong, that in the exercise thereof people have an invi…" by William Randolph Hearst?
William Randolph Hearst photo
William Randolph Hearst 12
American newspaper publisher 1863–1951

Related quotes

Arthur James Balfour photo

“Few persons are prevented from thinking themselves right by the reflection that, if they be right, the rest of the world is wrong.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Fernando Pessoa photo

“We, all who live, have
A life that is lived
And another life that is thought,
And the only life we have
It's the one that is divided
In right or wrong.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
James Baldwin photo

“It is true that two wrongs don't make a right, as we love to point out to the people we have wronged. But one wrong doesn't make a right, either.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html in The New York Times (9 April 1967)
Context: It is true that two wrongs don't make a right, as we love to point out to the people we have wronged. But one wrong doesn't make a right, either. People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.

“I reflected that for all the people you lost touch with or couldn't hold on to, life occasionally made up for it by giving you the right person at the right time.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Ernestine Rose photo

“I suppose you all grant that woman is a human being. If she has a right to life she has a right to earn a support for that life. If a human being, she has a right to have her powers and faculties as a human being developed. If developed, she has a right to exercise them.”

Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) American feminist activist

At a New York State convention, Rochester, N.Y. (1853), quoted in Kolmerten, Carol A., The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999, p. 129-130.

George Saintsbury photo

“Majorities are generally wrong, if only in their reasons for being right.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

Source: A Last Vintage, p. 172.

Andy Warhol photo

“I like to be the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because something interesting always happens.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist
Angela Merkel photo

“This is a good day for the world's children. Children who today have no right to their own childhood, to education, to personal inviolability, have with these two representatives, these prize winners, got a voice both for the right to education — particularly for girls — and against unfair and exploitative child labor.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Reaction to the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize announcement https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/reaction-to-the-2014-nobel-peace-prize-announcement-1.2048390 CTV News, (10th October 2014)
2014

Alain Badiou photo

“According to the way it is generally used today, the term 'ethics' relates above all to the domain of human rights, 'the rights of man'- or, by derivation, the rights of living beings. We are supposed to assume the existence of a universally recognizable human subject possessing 'rights' that are in some sense natural: the right to live, to avoid abusive, to enjoy 'fundamental' liberties (of opinion, of expression, of democratic choice in the election of governments, etc.) These rights are help to be self-evident, and the result of a wide consensus. 'Ethics' is a matter of busying ourselves with these rights, of making sure that they are respected.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

Source: Ethics, Chapter One, "Does Man Exist?"

Related topics