William O. Douglas Quotes

The American public is capable of doing its own censoring… If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do.

You may not like the expression of an opinion, but you can't stop it.

My lyrics aren't offensive. Some people find everything offensive.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized.

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

And, sure, if you have a political point of view, you have every right to share it. But you have to be careful not to get too self-important. You have to find the balance between being entertaining and being preachy.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

Political correctness means nothing to me. Nothing. It's the new Puritanism, darling. Preventing us from expressing ourselves.

Anything that exists on the human palette is, from my point of view, fair game for artists to portray. You don't have to go see it if you don't want to, so don't go.

In a democratic society, we politicians have to accept criticism, especially when it is founded.

Anyone who believes in tolerance and freedom will support Denmark and publish all 12 cartoons.

Freedom of speech only exists in proportion to indifference to the thing spoken of.

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

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

Democracy depends on the idea that we hold each others’ right to express ourselves and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want. You can’t impose tolerance top-down.

In 2003, I wrote a New York Times best-seller called 'Shut Up & Sing,' in which I criticized celebrities like the Dixie Chicks & Barbra Streisand who were trashing then-President George W. Bush. I have used a variation of that title for more than 15 years to respond to performers who sound off on politics.

People must be protected from prejudice against their person. But people cannot be protected from prejudice against their ideas - because otherwise we're all done.

Everyone has a right to say what they want, but what they have to say doesn't interest me.

Hate speech and freedom of speech are two different things.

If the so called 'democratic' individuals out there really believe in their talk about diversity, they should let those with truly different opinions be allowed to talk freely in public, too.

Personally, I think people need to get over this 'being offended' thing. Being offended does not give you the right to silence people. I get offended by things all the time - it's just part of life. The right not to be offended is not a human right, especially in a democracy.

Look I can't get into the minds of people who made decisions to support us or support anybody else. But I can tell you that Scott Lively, a lot of what he says and a lot of what he believes doesn't belong in public discourse.

I don't try to be politically correct.