Salman Rushdie Quotes

Very often in free speech cases you find yourself defending material that you personally detest, because of course it's no trick to defend the free speech of people you either agree with or who don't particularly upset you. It's when people really upset you that you discover if you believe in free speech or not.

Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease, the right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

I generally feel that the solution to speech that people find offensive is more speech. You should talk about it, discuss it.

Take free speech: most of the tough cases on free speech involve very unpleasant people saying very obnoxious things.

Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.

Being offended by freedom of speech should never be regarded as a justification for violence.

In America it's live by the sword of freedom of expression and be will to die by it as well.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

I won't ever got to a place that's racist, and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.

I think it's important, however, that as we again talk about the importance of free speech we make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not America they are not who were they are not what we do and they will be prosecuted, so I want that message to be clear also.

I believe in absolute freedom of expression. Everyone has a right to offend and be offended.

You know, everybody believes in free speech until you start questioning them about it.

Freedom of Expression stops where it can do harm …. My community is humiliated, my religion is insulted. I ask for justice.

Free speech is meaningless unless it tolerates the speech that we hate.

Everyone champions freedom of expression in the abstract but few can resist calling for censorship when they do not like what is being expressed.

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

It's not my place to say if performers of quenelle should be punished.

Nowhere does our Constitution say we cannot say something about another's religion. Nowhere does our Constitution say we cannot say anything that offends someone.

The definition of hate speech in some countries is problematic.

I support Richard Spencer's right to say what he wants. He can be nasty about Jewish people, he has a right to free speech, but I don't want to be a part of that.

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.