Andrea Dworkin Quotes

I think the truth is black-and-white.

The first thing a principle does is kill somebody.

I don't like the tendency on the part of so many people today to think that those who don't agree with them are bad. In fact, I find that very dangerous.

Moral stupidity comes in two different forms: relativism and legalism. Relativism sees no principles, only people; legalism sees no people, only principles.

I should say that all compromise is a "stepping down" of the Truth, is trying to reduce something which cannot be reduced, and that for anyone who has understood life these compromises are impossible.

The ACLU sues no matter what public property a religious symbol is placed on.

I thought that one of the things that we were losing sight of is the basic reasons that we do protect free speech and freedom of the press and the essentiality and centrality in our lives of really giving broad protection to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in America. I thought I could do that by telling stories of some of the cases that established those principles on a real life on the ground basis.

There must be no compromise with slavery - none whatever. Nothing is gained, everything is lost, by subordinating principle to expedience.

Intolerance is the besetting sin of moral fervour.

We often seem to be swimming through such a miasma of sexual violence - in advertising, television programming, heavy metal, rap, films, and worst of all, in the home - that even First Amendment absolutists sometimes daydream about how nice it would be to have government-as-nanny just outlaw all this effluent.

To be an American is not...a matter of blood; it is a matter of an idea--and history is the image of that idea.

Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.

No matter what the legislature may say, a man has the right to make his speech, print his handbill, compose his newspaper, and deliver his sermon without asking anyone's permission. The contrary suggestion is abhorrent to our traditions.

Freedom of the press and also of speech, assembly, and worship can persist as social forms and legal guarantees, while at the same time their functional realities can be gradually slipping away.

[Liberals] are always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. ... Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment.

Would you like Fox's right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states have approved it, let's wait till the other 45 states do?

The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.

I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.

The Court explained the problem with his writings (People v. Ruggles. 1811.): an attack on Jesus Christ was an attack on Christianity; and an attack on Christianity was an attack on the foundation of the country; therefore, an attack on Jesus Christ was equivalent to an attack on the country!

I'm really proud of this Supreme Court and the way they've been dealing with the issue of First Amendment political speech.

I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas - whether that association be called a political party or not - marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country.

Once a paper admits any principle of censorship for survival, the we-don't-want-to-do-it-but-we-don't-want-to-lose-the-printer kind of censorship, it jeopardizes the integrity of its editorial principle. It's better to print and be damned, because you'll be damned anyway.

In the devil's theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong.

I believe in freedom of speech. And I believe that spending on political campaigns is a form of political speech that is protected under the constitution.