|
Without general elections, without unrestrained freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution…in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.more Rosa Luxemburg quotes |
The dissenter is every human being at those times of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.more Archibald Macleish quotes |
It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available.more Thomas Mann quotes |
|
|
The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.more H. L. Mencken quotes |
|
The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.more H. L. Mencken quotes |
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.more H. L. Mencken quotes |
That erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.more H. L. Mencken quotes |
|
Religious liberty is primarily a man’s liberty to profess a faith different from that of the dominant religion, and to unite in public worship with those who share his faith.more Giovanni Miegge quotes |
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.more John Stuart Mill quotes |
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.more Henry Miller quotes |
If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you will do will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell.more C. Wright Mills quotes |
When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men look for.more John Milton quotes |
|
The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.
Unless he understands this, he does not grasp the essential meaning of his life.more Huey P. Newton quotes |
There will be no prison which can hold our movement down...
The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards
can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.more Huey P. Newton quotes |
|
We were trying to increase the conflict that was already happening... we felt that we would take the conflict to so high a level that some change had to come.more Huey P. Newton quotes |
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.more Charles Eliot Norton quotes |
The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 -- to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.more P. J. O'Rourke quotes |
As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.more J. Robert Oppenheimer quotes |
|
Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed—no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull.more George Orwell quotes |
Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.more Dr. Ron Paul quotes |
|
A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism (no final say); it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.more Jonathan Rauch quotes |
|
[T]he people as ultimate sovereigns, retain the ultimate power -- and even the duty -- to overthrow any government that fails to respect their authority.more Glenn Harlan Reynolds quotes |
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.more Theodore Roosevelt quotes |
|
Free societies…are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom’s existence.more Salman Rushdie quotes |
|
These men - ..., the politicians, ... - use their position, their knowledge, and their power of disseminating misinformation to arouse and stimulate the latent instinct for bloodshed. When they have succeeded, they say they are reluctantly forced to war by the pressure of public opinion.more Bertrand Russell quotes |
|
I pray that no child of mine would ever descend into such a place as a library. They are indeed most dangerous places and unfortunate is she or he who is lured into such a hellhole of enjoyment, stimulus, facts, passion and fun.more Willy Russell quotes |
Profound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.more Andrei Sakharov quotes |
The religious quality of Marxism also explains a characteristic attitude of the orthodox Marxist toward opponents. To him, as to any believer in a faith, the opponent is not merely in error but in sin. Dissent is unapproved of not only intellectually but also morally.more Joseph A. Schumpeter quotes |
Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.more Ben Shahn quotes |
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.more George Bernard Shaw quotes |
Heretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness. Why can they not yield on so trifling a matter?more Leo Shestov quotes |
Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying “No” to any authority -- literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.more Ignazio Silone quotes |
We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been.more Solon quotes |
|
One of the most pathetic — and dangerous — signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.more Thomas Sowell quotes |
The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it’s invalid on its face.more Justice Potter Stewart quotes |
[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve it’s high purpose when it indices a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with things as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for understanding.more Justice Potter Stewart quotes |
