Salman Rushdie Quotes

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind.

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it.

The Supreme Court has held that code is speech. And it doesn't matter that it's done on a computer or done face to face or done in a newspaper, reporting the facts of the world is protected speech.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

Being a bigot does not void your 1st Amendment rights.

Under the privilege of the 1st Amendment many, many ridiculous things are said.

If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

Nowhere does our Constitution say we cannot say something about another's religion. Nowhere does our Constitution say we cannot say anything that offends someone.

I just think political correctness is a limitation on our First Amendment freedoms.

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.

I would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact.

Advocates of 'free speech' often repeat the mantra that the best response to bad speech is more and better speech, not the suppression of the bad stuff.

The best way to deal with the neo-Nazi movements is not to overreact and curtail their free speech rights which would make you no better than they are.

[E]rroneous statement … must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to be given the breathing space that they need ... to survive.

We all find flag burning repugnant. We find burning crosses repugnant. But they have been burning crosses longer than they have been burning flags and there has been no rush for a constitutional amendment to stop the burning of crosses.

The Constitution does not allow the unnecessary trammeling of free expression, even for the noblest of purposes.

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

As a young constitutional lawyer, I was put to the first amendment test when I was called on to defend racists and neo-Nazis. I really had no choice. Surely now we know that none of us do. Free speech is unequivocal, unpolitical, and indivisible.

Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.

We are strong supporters of First Amendment rights, and we believe free speech is a two-way street. While anyone is free to be an anti-Muslim bigot, on campus or off, CAIR is free to challenge their bigotry by speaking out against the promotion of hatred and intolerance.

The Founding Fathers' instructions were clear: The right to free speech includes bad speech; it means tolerance of ideas that many find obnoxious.

There is no asterisk in the Constitution that says 'except for hate speech.'