Quotes About Speech

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 freedom out of existence.

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.

All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech.

In China, your freedom is always limited, but this limitation applies to almost everyone. If someone does injustice to you, though, you have to find a way to avenge yourself - even by illegal measures. In a sense, injustice is more personal. This idea has always been in Chinese history. I think we read about freedom of speech, or lack of freedom of speech, in China so often. But I don't think people here in America think about how justice, or the idea of justice, is so important in a Chinese setting. It's probably more important than freedom of speech in the Chinese mindset at this moment.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful.

[A] society which makes freedom its primary goal will lose it, because it has made, not responsibility, but freedom from responsibility, its purpose. When freedom is the basic emphasis, it is not responsible speech which is fostered but irresponsible speech.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised [sic] and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

While even pornography is protected as free speech, the courts have consciously undermined religious speech and freedom of religion for years.

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.'

Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

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.

I am not a political person. My involvement in the Free Speech Movement is religious and moral... I don't know what made me get up and give that first speech. I only know I had to. What was it Kierkegaard said about free acts? They're the ones that, looking back, you realize you couldn't help doing.

Now is the time to draw a clean, clear, bright line and say if you are engaging in speech over the Internet you do not have to check with your lawyer or your accountant. You are a free American, and you have the opportunity to engage in free speech over the Internet.

The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

IN MY NERVOUSNESS FOR THIS SPEECH AND MY MOMENTS OF DOUBT, I'VE TOLD MYSELF FIRMLY, 'IF NOT ME, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN?'

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

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

Free speech gives us the ability to react vigorously with effective arguments and expose the weakness and misdirection of the other side's claims.

Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

While we generally believe in free speech and giving everyone as much ability to speak as possible, in practice there are lots of barriers to that, whether it's legal restrictions, technological restrictions or you can't share what you want if you don't have access to the internet.

I don't rely on the media. I usually average one speech a day for 25 years. People know me because I'm out there.

I'm able to bring business expertise but, more importantly, operating experience. The people here at Google are young. Every day there are lots of new challenges. I keep things focused. The speech I give everyday is: "This is what we do. Is what you are doing consistent with that, and does it change the world?"

I have observed in my 30 years in Washington that when a President initiates a major policy speech on a controversial issue while Congress is in recess, it usually is because what he is advocating is indefensible and that he is seeking to minimize criticism.

Islam doesn't try to destroy cultures; it cleans them up. You can keep your language but get rid of your racist speech. You can keep your style of cooking, but get rid of alcohol. You can keep your cultural dresses, but keep your modesty on the highest level.

Anyone wishing to communicate with Americans should do so by e-mail, which has been specially invented for the purpose, involving neither physical proximity nor speech.

There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.

In fact, anybody else who hears this [speech of Donald Trump in Philadelphia] is probably gonna be dutifully impressed with Trump's comportment, his presentation, his knowledge of this, and his temperament here. It's all a great package and looks good.

Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press.

To have a specific style is to be poor in speech.

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.

To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people.

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

Encourage others each and every day-nothing's more important than our words. Did you know that, on average, each of us speaks about twenty-five thousand words daily? My last book didn't have that many words. A lot of language is flowing out of our mouths every day and having an impact on those around us. But how much of that flow is fulfilling God's intended purpose for our speech? How much of it reflects pride, rather than a gospel-motivated humility?

The most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of SPEECH, consisting of Names or Appellations, and their Connexion; whereby men register their Thoughts; recall them when they are past; and also declare them one to another for mutuall utility and conversation; without which, there had been amongst men, neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears, and Wolves.

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.

Baseball is to our everyday experience what poetry often is to common speech — a slightly elevated and concentrated form.

Comics definitely embody the importance of practicing free speech.

It is said that Windham, when he came to the end of a speech, often found himself so perplexed by his own subtlety that he hardly knew which way he was going to give his vote. This is a good illustration of the fallaciousness of reasoning, and of the uncertainties which attend its practical application.

I definitely support free speech.

I often think that at the center of me is a voice that at last did split, a house in my heart so invaded with other people and their speech, friends I believed I was devoted to, people whose lives I can simply guess at now, that it gives me the impression I am simply a collection of them, that they all existed for themselves, but had inadvertently formed me, then vanished. But, what: Should I have been expected to create my own self, out of nothing, out of thin, thin air and alone?

I will not abridge my freedoms so as not to offend savages, freedom of speech is under violent assault here.

Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap.

His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.

For just as some women are said to be handsome though without adornment, so this subtle manner of speech, though lacking in artificial graces, delights us.