Tim Robbins Quotes

I grew up under a dictatorship. I knew what it meant for people to not have the ability to freely express themselves.

None but the dead have free speech.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Speak, speak, speak, & remember that whenever anyone's liberty to speak is denied, your liberty is denied also, & your place is where the attack is.

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.

There are still people that have been held for human rights that shouldn't be held for just speaking their mind.

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

I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.

A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law.

Our political life is closed, and our freedoms usurped, and our people are oppressed, and fearful… if you don’t say what the ruler wants, you’re exiled beyond the sun.

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

Dictators are as scared of books as they are of cannon.

People are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered Expression

It is not only under Nazi rule that police excesses are inimical to freedom. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.

Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all... It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.

The most repressive societies have always restricted speech the most — and when people are finally able to speak, they often call for change.

Even if the country is run by a Mussolini, free speech will find its way.

Millions of people have to restore liberty and have to understand the danger and personal risk they face in a police state.

In any nation in which people's rights have been subordinated to the rights of the few, in any totalitarian nation, the first institution to be dismantled is the jury. I was, I am, afraid.

We must ask the high cadres ... When you suppressed the rights of others to express freely their political views, did you secure your own?

Some people only speak of freedom of speech while they're out of power. Once they're in power, they're ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

I have had fatwas issued against me, some three in Bangladesh and another five in India. I will not be cowed by these threats and shall fight for my rights.

In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies.