America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

It seems fair to say that while the moral standards of the nineteenth century persisted almost unchanged into the twentieth, moral practices changed sharply, and that though the standards of the nineteenth century persisted the institutions that had sustained them and the sanctions that had enforced them lost influence and authority.

The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought.

In the long run [censorship] will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.