John Lilburne Quotes

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

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

We can't let censorship take over.

I grew up under a dictatorship. I knew what it meant for people to not have the ability to freely express themselves.

truth ... is the first casualty of tyranny.

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

And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.

I hate censorship, man. I really do.

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law.

Repression or oppression never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or redressing a wrong.

It is dangerous to speak the truth to tyrants.

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.

Dictators are as scared of books as they are of cannon.

Pakistan is an anomaly in the Islamic world, in the sense that there is a free press, which is amazing. I can't think of another Islamic country where the press is so free….one cannot claim that there is no fear. There is fear, but more and more people are saying what they want to say

That's how dictators get started.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

The first thing dictators do is finish free press, to establish censorship. There is no doubt that a free press is the first enemy of dictatorship.

None but the dead have free speech.

If it come to prohibiting, there is aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.

Some people only speak of freedom of speech while they're out of power. Once they're in power, they're ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.