The quote database

The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker's enthusiasm for the result.

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion

Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue.

The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government.

Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery.

Thus, even as the colonists embarked on a course to secure their own freedom and equality, they ensured perpetuation of the system that deprived a whole race of those rights.

We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.

that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment , it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form--and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing--with indignation and abhorrence.

What right have I to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by nature?

Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire.

Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence.

While a slave remains in his fetters, the land must have no rest.

What you demand for yourselves, in virtue of your manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground.

Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute.

Free speech--the glory of our system of government--should not be sacrificed on anything less than plain and objective proof of danger that the evil advocated is imminent.

Otherwise, free speech which is the strength of the Nation will be the cause of its destruction.

The quality of advocacy turns on the depth of the conviction; and government has no power to invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.