Salman Rushdie Quotes

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

The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.

I know of only one country, at least to my knowledge, which has a dissident culture where leading figures, I mean, the most famous writers, journalists, academics and so on, are not only critical of state policy, but are constantly carrying out civil disobedience and risking imprisonment and often being imprisoned, standing up for people's rights. That's Turkey.

We are free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being. Let no one forget it.

Thus if the First Amendment means anything in this field, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community. In other words, literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.

Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.

In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce.

The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought.

the fundamental right of freedom of thought and expression is essential. If you curtail what the other fellow says and does, you curtail what you yourself may say and do.

Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.

In communist countries, you execute your poets. In the free world, the poets execute themselves.

Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.

Today in many western countries, nobody dares question the Holocaust whose nature is questionable. According to the reports I have received, in America if people decide to write something against homosexuality on the basis of psychological and sociological principles, they will be prevented from publishing their work. How is it that these people feel obligated to respect freedom of expression?

Specific protection must be granted to human rights defenders and whistleblowers who have in some contexts been accused of being unpatriotic, whereas they perform, in reality, a democratic service to their countries and to the enjoyment of human rights of their compatriots.

How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show - it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

Isn't it my right to talk and say what I want to?

No art ever survived censorship; no art ever will.

We can't simply scare people into giving up their rights, on the basis, oh, this protects us from terrorism.

Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.

In the most civilized and progressive countries freedom of discussion is recognized as a fundamental principle.

I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given.

There's no human censorship at kiosks.

I can say across Europe that many principles that have been taken for granted here around free speech, and around civil liberties and an independent judiciary, and fighting corruption, those are principles that, you know, not perfectly but generally, we have tried to apply not just in our own country but also with respect to our foreign policy.

If artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?

It is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten.