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2022 May 20
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"The dominant purpose of the First Amendment
was to prohibit the widespread practice
of government suppression of embarrassing information." |
"The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals.
It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been
historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets
of Thomas Paine and others in our history abundantly attest." |
"You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress,
and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress
is freedom of utterance in danger...
Only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed,
and when it is needed it is most vital to justice." |
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2022 May 19
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"Hastiness and superficiality
are the psychic diseases
of the twentieth century,
and more than anywhere else
this disease is reflected in the press." |
"A newspaper has three things to do.
One is to amuse, another is to entertain
and the rest is to mislead." |
"What chiefly distinguishes the daily press is its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion." |
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2022 May 18
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"You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken – unspeakable! – fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse – a little tiny mouse! – of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic." |
"A radical is one who speaks the truth." |
"The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side." |
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2022 May 17
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"No nation, ancient or modern, ever lost the liberty
of speaking freely, writing, or publishing their sentiments,
but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves." |
"Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man." |
"[I]t’s an unfortunate reality in many of the journalistic environments we exist today. We can’t criticize certain people, or dig into certain stories, or follow our noses on the trail of corruption if it means upsetting our publishers, sponsors, and donors." |
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2022 May 16
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"Printers are educated in the Belief, that when Men differ in Opinion,
both sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the
Public; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is
always an overmatch for the latter: Hence [printers] cheerfully serve
all contending Writers that pay them well, without regarding on which
side they are of the Question in Dispute." |
"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak,
or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press,
as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable." |
"Civil libertarians must often remind government officials (and others) that if the First Amendment only protected the expression of popular and agreeable ideas, it would be totally unnecessary since those ideas would never be threatened by our democratic form of government. Our society's commitment to free speech is tested when we encounter the expression of ideas that are disagreeable -- or even offensive." |
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