Gad Saad Quotes

Poking fun at other people's beliefs, while it may seem frivolous and offensive, is a non-negotiable right. It is a principle that underpins free speech, the basis for progress.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

The lawsuits we are seeing today to ostracize and prevent different ideas recall previous eras. We must understand that Islam has given man freedom of thought. Islam's history proves that no one is immune to error except the Prophet.

The long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

It is our firm belief, nay a conviction which constitutes one of the basic values of a free society to which we are wedded under our Constitution, that there must be freedom not only for the thought that we cherish, but also for the thought that we hate

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

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

There is nothing wrong with intellectual differences flowing from freedom of thought as long as such differences remain confined to intellectual debates.

We should fight to preserve a country where people such as Michael Moore get to miss the point as badly as he misses it. Michael Moore represents everything I detest in a human being.

We live in a democracy. We have this extraordinary opportunity to use our mind and say what we think, speak as we think. Sometimes what we say is objectionable to other people. But that is part of a free society.

In fact, I would defend to the death their right to express a different point of view.

I think that liberals need to grow up.

I don't mind anybody coming after me as long as they're coming with facts.

A free society means that you might have to put up with a lot of things you despise.

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think and the right to think wrong.

The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.

The doctrine of toleration requires a positive as well as a negative statement. It is not only wrong to burn a man on account of his creed, but it is right to encourage the open avowal and defense of every opinion sincerely maintained. Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.

America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter — and that we may be wrong at times, even if we are powerful. We must be open to criticism and respect divergent and different views and interests.

Brown’s core value of promoting the free and open exchange of ideas is bedrock to our capacity to fulfill our mission as a university. This value applies not only when ideas are agreeable and aligned with our own. Protecting the right to free expression and promoting open discourse is even more essential when ideas are divergent, abhorrent or even hurtful.

A final argument for broad freedom of expression is its effect on the character of individuals in a society. Citizens in a free society must have courage — the courage to hear not only unwelcome political speech but novel and shocking ideas in science and the arts.