Charles Bradlaugh Quotes

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousand-fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth..

I believe in a free market of ideas and not shying away from debate.

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.

Men must also be allowed the publication of their opinions, if this be done with decency and seriousness, for the learned can have no right to say that they are in possession of the truth, still less can the unlearned, unless every grave man can offer his opinions, be they what they may…

I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber.

Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

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

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.

Thought is more than a right - it is the very breath of man. Whoever fetters thought attacks man himself. To speak, to write, to publish, are things, so far as the right is concerned, absolutely identical. They are the ever-enlarging circles of intelligence in action; they are the sonorous waves of thought.

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

The most beautiful thing in the world is freedom of speech.

In a free state there must be free speech. In libera civitate etiam linguas esse liberas.

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

Every person must be his own watchman for the truth, because the forefathers did not trust government to separate the true from the false for us.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

I'm a great believer in freedom of speech.

Democrats need to value free speech and we should not be intimidated into giving an inch of it away.

I'm a strong believer in free speech to the degree that I support everybody's right to speak, including those whose views I find disgusting.

I have always believed in the marketplace of ideas.

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.