“‘The greatest gift of the modern world to man is freedom,’... ‘—freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom to act.’”

Source: Anthology of Black Humor

The Natural History of Nonsense XIX.

Attributed in Forbes Vol 38 Iss. 2 (1936) p. 18, and in Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia (1962) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 275

As quoted by Robert A. Fitton (editor) in Leadership: Quotations From the Military Tradition (1990), p. 126

Letter to William Green Mumford (18 June 1799) http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/munford/munford.html
1790s
Context: To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement. The generation which is going off the stage has deserved well of mankind for the struggles it has made, and for having arrested the course of despotism which had overwhelmed the world for thousands and thousands of years. If there seems to be danger that the ground they have gained will be lost again, that danger comes from the generation your contemporary. But that the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country.

2000-09, Ai Weiwei, Nursing Head Wound, Sharpens Criticism, 2009
Variant: Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.

Vapor (1999)