Quotes About Speech

A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more.

It was a high speech of Seneca that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."

Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.

It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.

Good words are better than bad strokes.

Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river.

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press.

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion.

The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.

Do you know what I think white people wholly own? I think freedom of speech is a white thing. This is something that white people do. I think governments, this is a white thing.

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than 10 military divisions.

The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.

I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech.

As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics.

The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.

The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

It is not so much freedom of speech but the right to truth that great men protect.

In a democracy, everyone has the right to criticise the Government.

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