Sam Adams, attributed: “The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought>”
Hugo Black [1964]: “An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.”
Louis D. Brandeis [1927]: “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.”
Henry S. Commager {1966]: “We cannot have a society half slave and half free; nor can we have thought half slave and half free. If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will in the end create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly. If we put a premium on conformity we will, in the end, get conformity.”
Conference for Progressive Political Action [1924]: “Every generation must wage a new war for freedom against new forces that seek through new devices to enslave mankind.”
Helen G. Davis [1945]: “It is not easy to be free men, for to be free you must afford freedom to your neighbor, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin, and that sometimes, for some, is very difficult.”
William Faulkner [1956]: “We cannot choose freedom established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on a caste system of equality like military rank. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it>”
Oliver W. Holmes[1919]: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”
Elbert Hubbard [1923]: “There is no freedom on earth or in any star for those who deny freedom to others.”
Thomas Jefferson [1784]: “Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.”
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick[1982]: “The defense of freedom is finally grounded in an appreciation of its value. No government, no foreign policy, is more important to the defense of freedom than are the writers, teachers, communication specialists, researchers – whose responsibility it is to document, illustrate, and explain the human consequences of freedom and unfreedom.”
Archibald MacLeish: “What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and exercise of that choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing>”
James Madison [1788]: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
Edward R. Murrow {3/7/1954 report on Sen. J. McCarthy]: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer [10/10/1949 ‘Life”]: “As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.”
Thomas Paine [9/12/1777}: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it>”
Benno C. Schmidt, Jr [l2/5/1986]: “Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or the instrument of government – but the reverse….If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom, no religious freedom, no freedom of families to make their own decisions [regarding having children]. All these freedoms tend to reinforce one another.”
Hazel Scott [1974]: “Who ever walked behind anyone to freedom? If we can’t go hand in hand, I don’t want to go.”
Adlai E. Stevenson [9/6/1952]: “A hungry man is not a free man.”
Woodrow Wilson [9/4/1912]: “Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government.”
[note: the above quotes are from “The Harper Book of American Quotations,” by Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich}
With Justice For All 