Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"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."

~ Sir Francis Bacon  

"We may define a Puritan as a man who holds that certain kinds of acts, even if they have no visible bad effects upon others than the agent, are inherently sinful, and, being sinful, ought to be prevented by whatever means is most effectual - the criminal law if possible, and, if not that, then public opinion backed by economic pressure."

~ Bertrand Russell  

"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."

~ Joseph Allen  

"The liberty of the press is most generally approved
when it takes liberties with the other fellow, and leaves us alone."

~ Edgar Watson Howe  

"The right to be heard
does not automatically include
the right to be taken seriously."

~ Hubert H. Humphrey  

~ Tom Wicker  

"I begin by taking.
I shall find scholars later
to demonstrate my perfect right."

~ Frederick the Great  

"But those dealing in the actual manufacture of mind are dealing in a very explosive material. The material is not merely the clay of which man is master, but the truths or semblances of truth which have a certain mastery over man. The material is explosive because it must be taken seriously. The men writing books really are throwing bombs."

~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton  

"The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting?"

~ C. S. Lewis  

"People everywhere confuse,
What they read in newspapers with news."

~ A. J. Liebling  

"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon … has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."

~ James Madison  

"The notion of editorial independence from ownership only dates back to the 1930s. Prior to that time the media was openly biased and that includes the Press that the founding fathers dealt with. Some of the founders like Hamilton and Franklin had actually ran media outlets that were very biased. You used to have things like Newspapers that openly proclaimed they were a Democratic or Republican or Whig or a Federalist newspaper right on the banner. The concept of an independent and allegedly neutral press was and still is mainly pushed by people from the left who do NOT want anything remotely neutral, but who instead want to make sure those "evil" business interests don't have a means of getting their side aired without it being filtered by their idea of what a neutral press consists of."

~ John Dobbins  

"I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"... political reporters love to write about politics as if they are merely disinterested observers of political events and the public's perceptions of them, when in fact they play a very key role in shaping those events and perceptions."

~ Greg Sargent  

"The press is hostile to the idea of liberty.
Most people in the press are for big government.
Most people think that the solution to anything,
whether it's health care problems, education,
whatever it is -- it's got to be more government."

~ Harry Browne