Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

Some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

It was while helping others to be free that I gained my own freedom.

Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.

You find out the necessity of Liberty as you find out the necessity of air—by not having enough of it.

If there is anything in the world a person should fight for, it is freedom to pursue his ideal, because in that is his great opportunity for self-expression, for the unfoldment of the greatest thing possible to him.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

One man thinks himself the master of others but remains more of a slave than they are.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

Listen with ears of tolerance, see through the eyes of compassion, speak with language of love.

Understanding a question is half an answer.

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.