
— Mark Steyn Canadian writer 1959
"Stay Quiet and You'll Be Okay" http://www.steynonline.com/6943/stay-quiet-and-youll-be-okay steynonline.com (9 May 2015)
Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015
— Mark Steyn Canadian writer 1959
"Stay Quiet and You'll Be Okay" http://www.steynonline.com/6943/stay-quiet-and-youll-be-okay steynonline.com (9 May 2015)
„The real hate speech is not allowing free speech.“
— Geert Wilders Dutch politician 1963
Tweet https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/787257675952324608 (15 October 2016)
2010s
— Newton Lee American computer scientist
Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015
„The remedy for the abuse of free speech is more speech.“
— Mike Godwin, book Cyber Rights
Cyber Rights — cited in [DeCandido, GraceAnne A., Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, Booklist, American Library Association, 94, 22, 1932, August 1998]
Cyber Rights
„Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.“
— Salman Rushdie British Indian novelist and essayist 1947
Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: "Our lives teach us who we are." I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else's description of reality to supplant your own — and such descriptions have been raining down on me, from security advisers, governments, journalists, Archbishops, friends, enemies, mullahs — then you might as well be dead. Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.
"Free speech is a non-starter," says one of my Islamic extremist opponents. No, sir, it is not. Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
„There can be no free speech in a mob: free speech is one thing a mob can't stand.“
— Northrop Frye Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912 - 1991
"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 6: The Vocation of Eloquence
— Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961
Remarks by the President to the UN General Assembly https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly (25 September 2012), quoted in "President Obama Condemns Both ‘Disgusting’ Anti-Islam Video And ‘Mindless’ Violence Before The U.N." http://www.mediaite.com/tv/president-obama-condemns-both-disgusting-anti-islam-video-and-mindless-violence-before-the-u-n/ by Andrew Kirell, mediaite.com.
2012
Context: In every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask themselves how much they're willing to tolerate freedom for others. That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well. [... ] I know there are some who ask why we don't just ban such a video. And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As President of our country and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day -- (laughter) -- and I will always defend their right to do so. (Applause.) [... ] The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech -- the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect. [... ] On this we must agree: There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. (Applause.) There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There's no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There's no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan.
„Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free“
— Voltairine de Cleyre American anarchist writer and feminist 1866 - 1912
Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)
Context: What has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be "a necessary evil," and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.
Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
— Jerry Coyne American biologist 1949
see “Nazi”
" Latest college shenanigans by the Regressive Left: censorship at Pomona and UCLA; Wellesley student paper publishes “we need free speech but...” editorial https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/latest-news-about-college-shenanigans-by-the-regressive-left-censorship-at-pomona-and-ucla-wellesley-student-paper-writes-we-need-free-speech-but-article/" April 21, 2017
— Charles Bradlaugh British freethinker, and radical politician 1833 - 1891
Speech at Hall of Science c.1880 quoted in An Autobiography of Annie Besant; reported in Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations (1941), p. 398; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Attributed
„Think of "free speech", not "free beer".“
— Richard Stallman American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project 1953
Free Software
„There are no protections of autonomy and free speech.“
— Charles A. Reich American lawyer 1928 - 2019
The Liberals' Mistake (1987)
Context: Liberals placed an unreasonable amount of faith in large institutions: unions, foundations, big government, large corporations, and universities. These institutions are based on principles that are antithetical to democracy. They are not democratic, they are hierarchical: Someone is at the top and everybody else is at the bottom. Their policies are not made democratically, they are made at the top. These institutions are also not egalitarian. They operate by administrative discretion and authority, not the rule of law: There is no legislature, no group lawmaking body.
The individual in the large organization does not have the kind of constitutional rights that an individual in the society at large has. There are no protections of autonomy and free speech. Employees can be fired for many reasons. We need to constitutionalize large organizations to protect the people within them, to ensure that they can be politically outspoken.
„Speech should be fruitful as well as free.“
— Zechariah Chafee American judicial philosopher and civil libertarian 1885 - 1957
"Freedom of Speech as I See It Today", Journalism Quarterly, vol. 18 (June 1941), p. 158.
„None but the dead have free speech.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 393
— Johann Most German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator 1846 - 1906
The Beast of Property (1884)
— Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, The Common Good (1998)
Context: Property rights are not like other rights, contrary to what Madison and a lot of modern political theory says. If I have the right to free speech, it doesn't interfere with your right to free speech. But if I have property, that interferes with your right to have that property, you don't have it, I have it. So the right to property is very different from the right to freedom of speech. This is often put very misleadingly about rights of property; property has no right. But if we just make sense out of this, maybe there is a right to property, one could debate that, but it's very different from other rights.
„In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought.“
In civitate libera linguam mentemque liberas esse debere (jactabat).
— Tiberius 2nd Emperor of Ancient Rome, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty -42 - 37 BC
Variant translation: In a free state, both the tongue and the mind ought to be free.
From Suetonius, The Twelves Caesars, ch. 28
„Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
"The Privilege of the Grave" (1905)
Context: As an active privilege, [free speech] ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact. By the common estimate both are crimes, and are held in deep odium by all civilized peoples. Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always.
„Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.“
— Bob Marley Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician 1945 - 1981