zzzzzzy-done Quote

DONE - 14-4-04 %start%%quote%The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice. //%Author%Aristotle//%end% %start%%quote%The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning….for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth. //%Author%PETER ABELARD//%Who%(1099-1142)//%Source%Sic et non, c. 1120//%end% %start%%quote%Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger. //%Author%LORD ACTON//%Who%(1834-1902)//%end% %start%%quote%Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. //%Author%LORD ACTON//%Who%(1834-1902)//%Source%Letter, 23 January 1861//%end% %start%%quote%The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. //%Author%LORD ACTON //%Who%(1834-1902)//%Source%The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877//%end% %start%%quote%I would rather starve and rot and keep the privilege of speaking the truth as I see it, than of holding all the offices that capital has to give from the presidency down.//%Author%HENRY BROOKS ADAMS //%Who%(1838-1918)//%Source%The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma, 1919//%end% %start%%quote%Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom. //%Author%JOHN QUINCY ADAMS //%Who%(1767-1848) U. S. President//%Source%Letter, 1823//%end% %start%%quote% Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation. //%Author%JOHN QUINCY ADAMS //%Who%(1767-1848)//%Source%Letter to James Lloyd, 1 October 1822//%end% %start%%quote%Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. //%Author%SAMUEL ADAMS //%Who%(1722-1803)//%Source%Speech, 1 August 1776//%end% %start%%quote%Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others. //%Author%FELIX ADLER //%Who%(1851-1933)//%end% %start%%quote%Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. //%Author%MORTIMER ADLER //%Who%(1902-2001)//%end% %start%%quote%The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. //%Author%HERBERT SEBASTIEN AGAR //%Who%(1897-1980)//%Source%The Time for Greatness, 1942//%end% %start%%quote%Every time I criticize what I consider to be excesses or faults in the news business, I am accused of repression, and the leaders of various media professional groups wave the First Amendment as they denounce me. That happens to be my amendment, too. It guarantees my free speech as it does their freedom of the press… There is room for all of us – and for our divergent views – under the First Amendment. //%Author%SPIRO AGNEW//%Who%U. S. Vice-President//%Source%1972//%end% %start%%quote%The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.//%Author%SPIRO AGNEW//%Who%U. S. Vice-President//%Source%13 November 1969//%end% %start%%quote%From a “pragmatic” point of view, political philosophy is a monster and whenever it has been taken seriously, the consequence, almost invariably, has been revolution, war, and eventually, the police state. //%Author%HENRY DAVID AIKEN//%Source%Commentary, April 1964//%end% %start%%quote%The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.//%Author%THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH //%Who%(1836-1907)//%Source%Ponkapog Papers, 1903//%end% %start%%quote%Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.//%Author%DANTE ALIGHIERI //%Who%(1265-1321)//%Source%Letters//%end% %start%%quote%A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises.//%Author%SAUL ALINSKY//%Who%(1909-1972)//%Source%Rules for Radicals, 1971//%end% %start%%quote%Liberty cannot be caged into a charter or handed on ready-made to the next generation. Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times. Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves.//%Author%FLORENCE ELLINWOOD ALLEN //%Who%(1884-1966)//%Source%This Constitution of Ours, 1940//%end% %start%%quote%The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.//%Author%JOSEPH ALLEN //%Who%(1749-1827)Delegate//%Source%Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, 1788//%end% %start%%quote%I call the mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master [and] receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.//%Author%WOODY ALLEN//%Who%American Comedian//%end% %start%%quote%The artist, viewing his fellows through his personal vision, has through the ages attempted to portray what he sees and to present his understanding of it. Censorship in his case has perpetrated heavy and sometimes reprehensible blunders.//%Author%HOLLIS ALPERT//%Source%Censorship: For And Against, 1971//%end% %start%%quote%Freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die….//%Author%JOHN PETER ALTGELD //%Who%(1847-1902)//%Source%1897//%end% %start%%quote% I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.//%Author%LISA ALTHER//%end% %start%%quote%It is the duty of the officials to prevent or suppress the threatened disorder with a firm hand instead of timidly yielding to threats…. Surely a speaker ought not to be suppressed because his opponents propose to use violence. It is they who should suffer from their lawlessness, not he. //%Author%AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION//%Source%Bill of Rights Committee, Amicus Brief for the CIO, 1939//%end% %start%%quote%I shall not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land. //%Author%AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION//%Source%Oath for Candidates Seeking Admission to the Bar, 1925//%end% %start%%quote%The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack… These actions apparently arise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. //%Author%AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION//%Source%The Freedom to Read Statement, 2000//%end% %start%%quote%We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. //%Author%AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION//%Source%The Freedom to Read Statement, 2000//%end% %start%%quote%We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture.//%Author%AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION//%Source%The Freedom to Read Association, 2000//%end% %start%%quote%Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access of all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.//%Author%AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION//%Source%Office of Intellectual Freedom, 2002//%end% %start%%quote%Why is Intellectual Freedom Important? Intellectual freedom is the basis of our democratic system. We expect our people to be self-governors. But to do so responsibly, our citizenry must be well informed. Libraries provide the ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to inform themselves. //%Author%AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION//%Source%Office of Intellectual Freedom, 2002//%end% %start%%quote%The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal. //%Author%HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL//%Who%(1821-1881)//%Source%Journal, 17 June 1852//%end% %start%%quote%Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice…It loves on thing only…truth. //%Author%HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL//%Who%(1821-1881)//%Source%Journal, 1873-84//%end% %start%%quote%When a government takes over a people’s economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs. //%Author%MAXWELL ANDERSON//%Who%(1888-1959)//%Source%The Guaranteed Life//%end% %start%%quote%The intellectually stifling results of censorship – while deplorable in any setting – would be all the more abominable if allowed to exist within the college environment. //%Author%WILLIAM M. ANDERSON, JR.//%Who%President of Mary Washington College, Letter, 7 December 1983//%end% %start%%quote%No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny. //%Author%HANNAH ARENDT//%Who%(1906-1975)//%Source%The New Yorker, 12 September 1970//%end% %start%%quote%A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. //%Author%ARISTOTLE//%Who%(384-322 B.C.)//%Source%Politics, 343 B.C.//%end% %start%%quote%The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. //%Author%ARISTOTLE//%Who%(384-322 B.C.)//%end% %start%%quote%It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. //%Author%ARISTOTLE//%Who%(384-322 B.C.)//%end% %start%%quote%It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done. //%Author%ARISTOTLE//%Who%(384-322 B.C.)//%Source%Nicomachean Ethics, 340 B.C//%end% %start%%quote%Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil – and if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty. //%Author%ARISTOTLE//%Who%(384-322 B.C.)//%Source%Nicomachean Ethics, 340 B.C.//%end% %start%%quote%The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next. //%Author%MATTHEW ARNOLD//%Who%(1822-1887)//%Source%1875//%end% %start%%quote%It is a part of the function of “law” to give recognition to ideas representing the exact opposite of established conduct. Most of the complications arise from the necessity of pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another. //%Author%THURMAN ARNOLD//%Who%(1891-1969)//%Source%The Symbols of Government, 1935//%end% %start%%quote%The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy.//%Author%THURMAN ARNOLD//%Who%(1891-1969)//%Source%Fair Fights and Foul: Dissenting Lawyer’s Life, 1965//%end% %start%%quote%To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends. //%Author%JOHN ASHCROFT//%Who%U. S. Attorney General//%Source%“Critics Aid Terrorists, AG Argues,” Boston Globe, 7 December 2001//%end% %start%%quote%Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent. //%Author%NANCY ASTOR//%Who%(1879-1964)//%Source%Member of Parliament, United Kingdom//%end% %start%%quote%The use of “religion” as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time. //%Author%MARGARET ATWOOD//%Source%Letter, Index on Censorship, 1995//%end% %start%%quote%Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge.//%Author%SIR FRANCIS BACON//%Who%(1561-1626)//%Source%The Advancement of Learning, 1605//%end% %start%%quote%The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. //%Author%SIR BRANCIS BACON//%Who%(1561-1626)//%end% %start%%quote%For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike. //%Author%SIR FRANCIS BACON//%Who%(1561-1626)//%Source%The Advancement of Learning, 1605//%end% %start%%quote%One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through. //%Author%SIR FRANCIS BACON//%Who%(1561-1626)//%Source%1625//%end% %start%%quote%A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out. //%Author%SIR FRANCIS BACON//%Who%(1561-1626)//%Source%The Advancement of Learning, 1605//%end% %start%%quote%There are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.//%Author%ROGER BACON//%Who%(1220-1292)//%Source%Opus Majus, 1266-67//%end% %start%%quote%Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment, //%Author%BEN BAGDIKIAN//%end% %start%%quote%Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. //%Author%WALTER BAGEHOT//%Who%(1826-1877)//%Source%Contemporary Review, April 1874//%end% %start%%quote%A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. //%Author%WALTER BAGEHOT//%Who%(1826-1877)//%end% %start%%quote%So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong. //%Author%WALTER BAGEHOT//%Who%(1826-1877)//%Source%Literary Studies//%end% %start%%quote% The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes. //%Author%CARL FRIEDRICH BAHRDT//%Who%(1740-1792)//%Source%On Freedom of The Press and Its Limits, 1787//%end% %start%%quote%The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination. //%Author%ROBERT BAIRD//%Source%Religion in America, 1856//%end% %start%%quote%The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights. //%Author%MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN//%Who%(1814-1876)//%Source%Proposition Motivee, 1868//%end% %start%%quote%Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him. //%Author%MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN//%Who%(1814-1876)//%Source%God and the State, 1871//%end% %start%%quote%Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery. //%Author%MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN//%Who%(1814-1876)//%Source%Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism, 1868//%end% %start%%quote%Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. //%Author%MIKHAIL BAKUNIN//%Who%(1814-1876)//%Source%God and The State, 1871//%end% %start%%quote%Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. //%Author%WALTER BAGEHOT//%Who%(1826-1877)//%Source%Contemporary Review, April 1874//%end% %start%%quote%The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological “atmosphere” or “climate” favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others. //%Author%ARTHUR BALFOUR//%Who%(1848-1930)//%Source%The Foundations of Belief, 1895//%end% %start%%quote%The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important. //%Author%HOSEA BALLOU//%Who%(1771-1852)//%end% %start%%quote%Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way.//%Author%HOSEA BALLOU//%Who%(1771-1852)//%end% %start%%quote%In terms of altering sociological patterns, free speech, rather than being the enemy, is a long-tested and worthy ally. To deny free speech in order to engineer social changes in the name of accomplishing a greater good for one sector of our society erodes the freedoms of all.//%Author%SARAH EVANS BARKER//%Who%Judge, U. S. District Court//%Source%Decision overturning Indianapolis Pornography Ordinance, 19 November 1984//%end% %start%%quote% To permit every interest group, especially those who claim to be victimized by unfair expression, their own legislative exceptions to the First Amendment so long as they succeed in obtaining a majority of legislative votes in their favor demonstrates the potentially predatory nature of what defendants seek through this Ordinance. //%Author%SARAH EVANS BARKER//%Who%Judge, U. S. District Court, Decision overturning Indianapolis Pornography Ordi-nance, 19 November, 1984//%end% %start%%quote%Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. //%Author%ALAN BARTH//%Source%The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951//%end% %start%%quote%The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state. //%Author%ALAN BARTH//%Source%The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951//%end% %start%%quote%Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims. //%Author%ALAN BARTH//%Source%The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951//%end% %start%%quote% There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so.//%Author%FREDRIC BASTIAT//%Who%(1801-1850)//%Source%The Law, 1850//%end% %start%%quote%[Natural rights are] moral claims to those spheres of action which are necessary for the welfare of the individual and the development of his personality. //%Author%M. SEARLE BATES//%Who%(1897-1978)//%Source%Religious Liberty: An Inquiry, 1945//%end% %start%%quote%Religious liberty is the chief cornerstone of the American system of government, and provisions for its security are embedded in the written charter and interwoven in the moral fabric of its laws. //%Author%THOMAS Y. BAYARD//%end% %start%%quote%As long and I don’t write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything. //%Author%PIERRE-AUGUSTIN BEAUMARCHAIS//%Who%(1732-1799)//%end% %start%%quote%The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful. //%Author%CESARE BECCARIA//%Who%(1738-1794)//%Source%On Crimes and Punishments, 1764//%end% %start%%quote%For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes. //%Author%CESARE BECCARIA//%Who%(1738-1794)//%Source%On Crimes and Punishments, 1764//%end% %start%%quote%We are more especially called upon to maintain the principles of free discussion in case of unpopular sentiments or persons, as in no other case will any effort to maintain them be needed. //%Author%EDWARD BEECHER//%Who%(1803-1895)//%end% %start%%quote%Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them. //%Author%HENRY WARD BEECHER//%Who%(1813-1887)//%Source%Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887//%end% %start%%quote%There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans...and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast. //%Author%HENRY WARD BEECHER//%Who%(1813-1887)//%Source%Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887//%end% %start%%quote%Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.//%Author%HENRY WARD BEECHER//%Who%(1813-1887)//%Source%Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887//%end% %start%%quote%[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein. //%Author%HILAIRE BELLOC//%Who%(1870-1950)//%Source%The Great Heresies, 1938//%end% %start%%quote%Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can’t open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated. //%Author%SAUL BELLOW//%Who%American Novelist//%end% %start%%quote%Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution. //%Author%W. LANCE BENNETT//%Source%News: The Politics of Illusion, 1983//%end% %start%%quote%As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. //%Author%JEREMY BENTHAM//%Who%(1748-1832)//%Source%On Liberty of the Press and Public Discussion//%end% %start%%quote%No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. //%Author%JEREMY BENTHAM//%Who%(1748-1832), Constitutional Code//%end% %start%%quote%I thank God, we have not free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience, and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both! //%Author%SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY//%Who%(1606-1677)//%Source%Royal Governor of Virginia, 1642//%end% %start%%quote%Purveyors of political correctness will, in the final analysis, not even allow others their judgments… They celebrate “difference,” but they will not allow people truly to be different – to think differently, and to say what they think. //%Author%MARK BERLEY, Argos, Spring 1998//%end% %start%%quote%Political correctness is really a subjective list put together by the few to rule the many – a list of things one must think, say, or do. It affronts the right of the individual to establish his or her own beliefs. //%Author%MARK BERLEY, Argos, Spring 1998//%end% %start%%quote%But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you – the social reformers – see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.//%Author%ISAIAH BERLIN//%Who%(1909-1997)//%Source%Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958//%end% %start%%quote%All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate. //%Author%ISAIAH BERLIN//%Who%(1909-1997)//%Source%Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958//%end% %start%%quote%Conformities are call for much more eagerly today than yesterday…skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side…in the great ideological wars of our time.//%Author%ISAIAH BERLIN//%Who%(1909-1997)//%Source%Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century, 1950//%end% %start%%quote%

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