Quotes About Speech

If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech - which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech - is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate 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.

I wish that Google would realize its own power in the cause of free speech. The debate has been often held about Google's role in acceding to the Chinese government's demands to censor search results. Google says that it is better to have a hampered internet than no internet at all. I believe that if the Chinese people were threatened with no Google, they might even rise up and demand free speech - free search and links - from their regime. Google lives and profits by free speech and must use its considerable power to become a better guardian of it.

Democratization is not democracy; it is a slogan for the temporary liberalization handed down from an autocrat. Glasnost is not free speech; only free speech, constitutionally guaranteed, is free speech.

Speak only endearing speech, speech that is welcomed. Speech, when it brings no evil to others, is pleasant.

In liberal society we claim that freedom of speech is sacred and therefore has an absolute character. But we know (or should know) that "free speech" inhabits a structured space: not only is "hate speech" legally forbidden in liberal societies, but there are also laws protecting the circulation of copyrighted material, and the reproduction of trademarks and patents without explicit permission.

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

Music has been called the speech of the angels; I will go farther and call it the speech of God Himself.

Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles.

Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the "ask not what you can do..." speech, he would answer 'ask not.'

How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak?

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.

If there were some solitary or feral man, the passions of the soul would be sufficient for him; by them he would be conformed to things in order that he might have knowledge of them. But because man is naturally political and social, there is need for one man to make his conceptions known to others, which is done with speech. So significant speech was needed if men were to live together. Which is why those of different tongues do not easily live together.

Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

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.'

If someone offends you by speech, you must learn to defend yourself by 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.

Speech doesn't corrupt. Money corrupts, and money isn't speech.

I've had my breath taken away when a fan told me since watching my speech she has stopped herself being beaten up by her father. I've been stunned by the amount of men in my life that have contacted me since my speech to tell me to keep going, and that they want to make sure that their daughters will still be alive to see a world where women have power and equality, economically and politically.

It is amazing how many people act as if the right to free speech includes the right to be free of criticism for what you say - which means that other people should not have the same right to free speech that they claim for themselves.

I also had a stuttering problem. In a Mexican home they don't give you speech therapy; they don't even know what speech therapy is. They just get the belt. If there's a parrot in the house, you better talk better than the parrot.

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I'll give you an example; I don't read what's handed to me. People say ''Here, here's your speech, or here's an idea for a speech.'' They're changed. Trust me.

If you have an internet service provider that's capable of slowing down other sites, or putting other sites out of business, or favoring their own friends and affiliates and customers who can pay for fast lanes, that's a horrible infringement on free speech. It's censorship by media monopolies. It's tragic: here we have a technology, the internet, that's capable really of being the town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks, and we are letting it be taken over by a few gatekeepers. This is a first amendment issue; it's free speech versus corporate censorship.

We [Americans] know Martin Luther King Jr. as a statue. We know him as a holiday. We know him as a speech. We don't know him as a man. Most people don't even know the whole speech, just "I have a dream." They don't know what his speaking voice was like, how he looked at his wife, or that he had four kids.

You can't trust politicians. It doesn't matter who makes a political speech. It's all lies - and it applies to any rock star who wants to make a political speech as well.

It's no surprise to say I oppose the ban [of Donald Trump].If we only allow free speech for those we already agree with, is that free speech at all?

Good dialogue is not real speech-it's the illusion of real speech.

College campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banded words and prohibited scientific inquiry.

I gave the graduation speech at my high school. Not because I was valedictorian but because the grade voted for me to do it. And I gave a slightly contentious speech. I was a little critical of the administration. But for a long time it said on Wikipedia that I took my balls out and exposed myself to the crowd.

The mind of a generation is its speech. A writer makes aspects of that speech enduring by putting them in print. He whittles at the words and phrases of today and makes of them forms to set the mind of tomorrow's generation. That's history. A writer who writes straight is the architect of history.

Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that, "thought comes before speech."

Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conservation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack.

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

Humans abhor a vacuum. The immediate filling of a vacuum is one of the basic functions of speech. Meaningless conversations are no less important in our lives than meaningful ones.

If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.

I first got into acting when I was about 12. I started doing speech and drama lessons. All my friends were doing it at the time and my dad encouraged it. He encouraged any extracurricular activity.

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

I think actually that the speech work I do is fine. It's important, because I try to help people think about what's going on and organize their lives accordingly.

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

Do not use the sharpness of your speech on your mother who taught you how to speak.

There is great worth in holding universal truths and timelessly beautiful words in your heart, which will stay there forever, infusing your thoughts and speech.

I have a lot of internalised tantrums. I secretly hope the worst and then I start planning my little speech for the beginning of it. Showers are the worst - all the time in the shower I'm planning the next time I'm going to lose it at someone, and then I never actually do. You're almost let down when people are nice.

I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff: I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.

Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.

Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.

Freedom of speech is a two way street, man. You have the right to say whatever you want and the Boss has a right to tell the police to arrest you.