Very often in free speech cases you find yourself defending material that you personally detest, because of course it's no trick to defend the free speech of people you either agree with or who don't particularly upset you. It's when people really upset you that you discover if you believe in free speech or not.

When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.

We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.

He had picked up languages the way most sailors pick up diseases; languages were his gonorrhoea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague, his plague.

The USA approach looks like bullying because it is.

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.

There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.