Simon Winchester Quotes

A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.

A free people, free to believe as we wish, free to speak our minds, free to raise our children as we see fit, will, make no mistake about it, endure.

Freedom of choice and free speech without fear must be defended.

I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.

Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.

But there are some persons who wouldpersuade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights.

The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.

The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

If words are to change their meanings, as assuredly they are, let each user of language make such changes as please himself, put up his own suggestions, and let the best win.

I was very much influenced by a great book by the scholar Neil Richards called Intellectual Privacy, that [Louis] Brandeis changed his mind on the proper balance between dignity and free speech.

I was invited to give the Freshmen Convocation at Florida Gulf Coast University on October 24, 2004. My book The Open Space of Democracy had been selected as one of the "common readers" for the university's 1,050 entering freshmen. On October 6, William Merwin, the president of Florida Gulf Coast, made the decision to "postpone" the convocation. He cited negative statements I had made in print about President Bush. If our colleges and universities are no longer the champions and protectors of free speech, then no voice in this country is safe.

It's not fair that our name can be used in any newspaper, any article connected with anything, and we can't really fight about it. It's like any newspaper that might take a picture of you, bad or good, and sometimes they're awful pictures, and they can use them without your approval and you can't do anything about it.

In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.

I've always thought the most patriotic thing you could do in a democracy is to speak the truth as you see it. And that's what we're supposed to be about in America. Freedom of speech.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion.

We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.

Human life consists of doing certain things ... to take part in the life of the community; to be able to talk about subjects that interest me and there freedom of speech comes into it.

Free speech not only lives, it rocks!

We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press...It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.

The liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves.

All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind.

The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained.

We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people.