H. L. Mencken Quotes

I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself.

Schools cannot teach all minority viewpoints even if they are passionately held.

He particularly liked about making students safe for ideas, not ideas safe for students.

Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief.

Our people should feel free to express diverse views, pursue unconventional ideas or simply be different.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.

There is a diversity of thought and philosophy, diversity of languages and dialects, diversity of political spectrum, and there's a diversity of taste for food. I don't label or characterize Jews in any way.

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

The goal of higher education should be to champion the airing of all honest viewpoints. Nothing less is acceptable.

One of the reasons I came to Berkeley was because I saw so many students of all different colors speaking so many different languages and ferociously presenting all these different views. I thought, this is the 21st century and I want to be here!

People always have an opinion. Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's wrong, but we have to respect their opinion.

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

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.

We promote pluralism, not dogma. We critique, we do not accept uncritically. We question and we debate, and over time we will separate the wheat from the chaff. We will separate the worthwhile from the misguided in all the new ideas and new voices that we hear. But we cannot do that if we close ourselves from the contrarian view, or simply suppress the views of those who would challenge the accepted and the known.

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 university is supposed to show you ideas that offend you and make you feel uncomfortable,

It's become easy for Americans to live in a cocoon of monolithic ideology and thought. It's time to embrace diversity of thought and diversity of experience.

Tolerance of true diversity on university campuses - diversity of opinion and belief - has been eroding for decades while alumni and trustees looked the other way.

Just because someone or something thinks differently than you do, it doesn't mean that it's not thinking.

If pluralism and academic freedom are to be used to defend liberal speakers and ideas, they ought to be equally valid for conservative views.

Of all forms of diversity that should be celebrated on university campuses, none is more important than supporting, nurturing, and promoting intellectual diversity.

University students should rightly be exposed to a plurality of viewpoints as part of their intellectual growth, rather attending the 'flock of sheep association of like-minded individuals.'

Philosophy is not one truth, but thousands of truths. You don't have to believe in just one thing. When you chose one idea, you close yourself to the rest.