Alan Barth Quotes

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

Riot is the voice of the unheard.

There will always be authorities who try to make their own lives more comfortable by suppressing critical comment.

To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

The intolerant man will not rely on persuasion, or on the worth of the idea. He would deny to others the very freedom of opinion or of dissent which he so stridently demands for himself. He cannot trust democracy.

Democracy is not what we hate the most and what we fear the most. We need to stand up.

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.

Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies.

But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

Fascist movements kill off their critics, literally or metaphorically, while democratic movements value, invite and even welcome criticism.

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

The Chinese people are not a new kind of human nature. Human nature in China is the same as it is elsewhere. When you start in a tyrannical regime to hand out freedom there is no place to draw that line and expect that line to hold. And so it’s only a matter of time before this regime comes down

Majorities … are often mistaken. That is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

If there is liberty, if there is democracy, in this country, it will stand or fall with the right of the minority to express to the full force of language its opposition in public to the policies of the government. And it will stand or fall with the courage of the minority so to express itself.

The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.

Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered Expression

I believe in defending democracy by preserving democracy, not by descending to the use of the same weapons used in dictatorships, whether of the Nazi or Communist stripe.