Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
More on These Topics
A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
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.
Freedom of information is a fundamental human right...for a nation that is afraid to let its people to judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
You find out the necessity of Liberty as you find out the necessity of air—by not having enough of it.
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defence.
No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace, and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.
I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
