Quotes About Speech

Our job isn't to defend freedom of speech, but without freedom of speech we are dead. We can't live in a country without freedom of speech. I prefer to die than live like a rat.

A well-functioning democracy has a culture of free speech, not simply legal protection of free speech. It encourages independence of mind. It imparts a willingness to challenge prevailing opinion through both words and deeds. Equally important, it encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers.

Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing more.

[T]he categories of intentionality are nothing more nor less than the metalinguistic categories in terms of which we talk epistemically about overt speech as they appear in the framework of thoughts construed on the model of over speech.

Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech.

Dr. King gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech.

Balanced' is a code for 'denied': a right to free speech that must be 'balanced' against so exhaustive a list of other supposed values means a right that can be exercised only when those in power judge that the speech in question is innocuous to them.

President Bush delivered a commencement speech at a university in Wisconsin. A very inspirational speech. Apparently Bush told the students, 'You can do anything in life if your parents work hard enough.'

In my view, madness is a place. You go. You come back. And I think we all take turns being the mental patient. Without a touch of crazy, literature can be a desolate place. In the current climate of careful speech, even fearful speech, smoke-free film scripts, thought-free songs, and child-proof locks on American minds, the oft-repeated lament of the arts is "Where have all those wonderful madmen gone?"

Among a man's many good possessions, A good command of speech has no equal. Prosperity and ruin issue from the power of the tongue. Therefore, guard yourself against thoughtless speech.

The U.S. affirms freedom of speech.[Vladimir] Putin is no friend of freedom of speech.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

If you only stand up for speech you approve of, you're a hack. If you only stand up for speech that everyone approves of, you're a coward.

The First Amendment is really at the very core of political speech, and political speech is at the core of the First Amendment. So, we want to be very careful to make sure that candidates for office are free to express their views so that people will make an informed choice. We don't want them holding back, and sort of concealing their views and then disclosing them afterwards.

The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.

I don't want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He's a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident or human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech.

The form of a work of art, which gives speech to their thoughts and is, therefore, their mode of talking, is always somewhat uncertain, like all kinds of speech.

The court has said you are entitled to robust speech on public sidewalks, even insulting speech.

Self-indulgence takes many forms. A man may be self-indulgent in speech, in touch, in sight. From self-indulgence a man comes to idle speech and worldly talk, to buffoonery and cracking indecent jokes. There is self-indulgence in touching without necessity, making mocking signs with the hands, pushing for a place, snatching up something for oneself, approaching someone else shamelessly. All these things come from not having the fear of God in the soul and from these a man comes little by little to perfect contempt.

Dialect or the speech of the people is capable of expressing whatever the people are.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

It's difficult to talk to people who whisper even at home, afraid of Americans eavesdropping on them. It's not a figure of speech, not a joke, I'm serious.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes.

Searching for the Truth through words and speech is like sticking your head in a bowl of glue.

John F.Kennedy gave probably the greatest inauguration speech ever that first time, but I guarantee you when he first walked out there he was thinking, "Goodness gracious this is big and I better be up to the task."

Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter. It is, in many ways, the most powerful form of free speech because it is aimed at those in power, or those whose ideas would spread hate. It is the canary in the coalmine, a cultural thermometer, and it always has to push, push, push the boundaries of society to see how much it’s grown.

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!

It was a good speech, but the reaction was due to the fact that politics are madness, and even if one does not know it, a country in electoral season experiences flares of lunacy like the great storms that sometimes march across the golden surface of the sun.

All Americans value the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, and I believe this is essential for our continued way of life. But with this freedom comes responsibility. That responsibility has been abdicated here by some in the media and some in the government.

I'm bullish on writing. Movies, radio, television, and now digital media - everything was supposed to push us away from text, to video or "back" to speech. First, there's no going back. We're always stumbling forward. Second, writing is invincible. Thirty years ago, we thought we'd all be talking to our computers; instead, we're all typing on our phones.

O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.

Freedom of speech and of the press are essential to the enlightenment of a free people and in restraining those who wield power.

For instance, in group therapy, I'll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they've just died and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission - even an order - to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.

Go back, go back to sleep. Yes, you are allowed. You who have no Love in your heart, you can go back to sleep. The power of Love is exclusive to us, you can go back to sleep. I have been burnt by the fire of Love. You who have no such yearning in your heart, go back to sleep. The path of Love, has seventy-two folds and countless facets. Your love and religion is all about deceit, control and hypocrisy, go back to sleep. I have torn to pieces my robe of speech, and have let go of the desire to converse. You who are not naked yet, you can go back to sleep.

I shall content myself with merely declaring my firm conviction that, for the seeker who would live in fear of God and who would see Him face to face, restraint in diet both as to quantity and quality is as essential as restraint in thought and speech.

For the first time since 2007 there is political momentum behind fixing the immigration system. President Obama in his State of the Union speech reached out to the right-wing by saying illegal immigrants seeking citizenship will have to pay taxes, learn English and get in line behind people who are trying to enter the United States. legally.

I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail.

Truth needs not flowers of speech.

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world.

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

I have heard Mr. Romney's speech's many times on television and the radio and I have even read his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness and I must say that out of all the gentleman running for the presidency Mr. Romney is, in my opinion, the best one to fit the bill.

The literary gift is a very dangerous gift to possess if you are not telling the truth, and I would a great deal rather, for my part, have a man stumble in his speech than to feel he was so exceedingly smooth that he had better be watched both day and night.