Jacques Derrida Quotes

The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.

Censorship constrains art and limits its impact as much as it does with all free thought.

To have art suppressed is very dangerous to society.

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.

The ultimate censorship is the flick of the dial.

Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

We should all have the opportunity to express what we want to express.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

You know I've had work banned.

In England, you're allowed to have an opinion - as long as it comes out of your mouth.

It's a free country and I can keep my mouth shut whenever I want.

When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation's only physical link to the past.

Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed.

In America you can say anything you want - as long as it doesn't have any effect.

I believe in absolute freedom of expression. Everyone has a right to offend and be offended.

My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them.

Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

Better a thousandfold abuse of speech than a denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.

Censorship has had a long history in the western world. Book banning is as old as books.

Where there is official censorship it is a sign that speech is serious.

Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure.

Arabs can be much more critical of their governments when they are outside of Arab countries.

When people fear surveillance, whether it exists or not, they grow afraid to speak their minds and hearts freely to their government or to anyone else.