Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Freedom of the Press and Constitutional Liberty must live or perish together.

To arrest a journalist for performing his duty is a confiscation of the freedom of expression guaranteed by all international pacts

If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free..

A free press can of course be good or bad, but most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad.

Put that [news]paper in your pocket, Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of the press questioned, show them this paper, and tell them where you found it.

There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly TERRIBLE to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS.

In the U.S., free speech and the press are protected by the First Amendment. It has a clarity unmatched by modern legislators and declares that 'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.'

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

When freedom of the press is threatened, the United States should be leading efforts to protect it.

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.

The first responsibility of the press is to use its freedom to protect the rights and liberties of all individuals …. If the occasion arises, raise bloody hell.

Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

Somebody ought to do on article on you, on your damn profession, your 1st Amendment.

Our press has too much freedom …. Democracy is a very lovely thing for a developed people.

… the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

Liberty of the press is a privilege to publish, with impunity, falsehood on matters of public concern, in the honest belief it is truth, with good motives, for justifiable ends

Of all times in time of war the press should be free.

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

A free press may be good or bad, but without freedom a press can only be bad.

We must have a free press. If we are to maintain democracxy as we know it, we must have a free and adversarial press.... That's how dictoators get power [by intimidating, restriciting and censoring the press.]

Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose.

When someone has to intervene to defend the liberty of the press, that society is sick.

The liberty of the Press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman.

In America we don’t apologize for opinions, that’s why we have a 1st Amendment. If we can’t discuss even controversial opinions in the pages of our newspapers, where are we going to do it?