John H. Langbein Quotes

Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

In a society where the individual is not free to pursue the truth, … there is neither progress, stability, nor security.

It was only a generation ago that we learned that the burning of books may precede the burning of people.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly and wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.

Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination.

Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.

And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered.

When you have a person in power who punishes people for speaking their mind, it's truly dangerous.

There never yet has been a great system sustained by force under which all the best faculties of men have not slowly withered.

The use of force to liberate people is very different from the use of force to suppress or control them, or even to defeat them.

I fear that, tired of anarchy, you may hope at the end for a return of oppression and that you may welcome the yoke of the first fortunate adventurer who shows up, who, far from consolidating your destiny, will only prolong your servitude

Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.