Protected Speech Quotes

Freedom of speech is freedom to offend.

If you're a liberal, anything you say is protected. If you're a conservative, anything you say is hateful.

Freedom of speech is freedom above all for those whose views you dislike most.

Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.

Freedom of speech means freedom for those who you despise, and freedom to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorize and which to prevent.

Private religious speech can't be discriminated against. It has to be treated equally with secular speech.

In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment.

I just think political correctness is a limitation on our First Amendment freedoms.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

Privacy in one's associations may in many circumstances be indispensable to freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.

Free speech is meaningless unless it tolerates the speech that we hate.

Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror.

Freedom of speech is central to most every other right that we hold dear in the United States and serves to strengthen the democracy of our great country. It is unfortunate, then, when actions occur that might be interpreted as contrary to this honored tenet.

I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.

Religious liberty doesn't include encouraging a fellow American to engage in violent jihad and kill an American here. That is not protected free speech. That is not protected religious belief.

Freedom of speech is a great thing and we have said nothing that is not allowed.

This is a country where loose talk is encouraged by the Constitution.

The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment.

Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.

My feeling is that the Supreme Court reached a reasonable standard of protection of speech in the 1960s, a standard higher than any other country in the world, to my knowledge. In brief, speech should be protected up to participation in imminent criminal action.

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

The First Amendment provides the only kind of security system that can preserve a free government - one that leaves the way wide open for people to favor, discuss, advocate, or incite causes and doctrines however obnoxious and antagonistic such views may be to the rest of us.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like.