B

16. Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge. SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), The Advancement of Learning, The Advancement of Learning, 1605.






17. One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through. SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), 1625.








18. A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out. SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), The Advancement of Learning, 1605.






19. There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge. ROGER BACON (1220-1292), Opus Majus, 1266-67.






20. Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment, BEN BAGDIKIAN.






21. Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-1877), Contemporary Review, April 1874.






22. So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong. WALTER BAGEHOT ((1826-1877), Literary Studies.






23. Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee. F. LEE BAILY, Newsweek, 17 April 1967.






24. The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights. MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN (1814-1876), Proposition Motivee, 1868.






25. Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him. MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN (1814-1876), God and the State, 1871.






26. Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery. MIKHAIL A. BAKUNIN (1814-1876), Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism, 1868.






27. Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-1877), Contemporary Review, April 1874. (IT IS THE SAME AS Nº 21)






28. The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important. HOSEA BALLOU (1771-1852).






29. Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way. HOSEA BALLOU (1771-1852).






30. Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. ALAN BARTH, The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951.






31. The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free - which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state. ALAN BARTH, The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951.






32. Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims. ALAN BARTH, The Loyalty of Free Men, 1951.






33. There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so. CLAUDE-FREDRIC BASTIAT (1801-1850), The Law, 1850.










34. [Natural rights are] moral claims to those spheres of action which are necessary for the welfare of the individual and the development of his personality. M. SEARLE BATES (1897-1978), Religious Liberty: An Inquiry, 1945.






35. One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. CHARLES A. BEARD (1874-1948), 1935.






36. Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them. HENRY WARD BEECHER (1813-1887), Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887.






37. There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans...and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast. HENRY WARD BEECHER (1813-1887), Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887.






38. Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. HENRY WARD BEECHER (1813-1887), Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887.






39. No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy. LYMAN BEECHER (1775-1863), Life Thoughts, 1858.






40. Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open. CLIVE BELL (1881-1964), Civilization, 1928.






41. As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832), On Liberty of the Press and Public Discussion.






42. Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order. JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832), The Book of Fallacies, 1824.






43. No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832), Constitutional Code.






44. But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you - the social reformers - see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them. ISIAH BERLIN, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958.






45. All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate. ISIAH BERLIN, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958.






46. In order to get the truth, conflicting arguments and expression must be allowed. There can be no freedom without choice, no sound choice without knowledge. DAVID K. BERNINGHAUSEN, Arrogance of the Censor, 1982.






47. Intellectual and cultural freedom is the most important single precondition for the breakdown of the kinds of tyrannical and totalitarian systems that periodically threaten us. JAMES BILLINGTON (1885-1981).






48. Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all… It is play that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Tally v. California, 1960.






49. Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write. U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), One Man's Stand For Freedom, 1963.






50. Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, IAM v. Street, 367 U.S., 1961.






51. Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the constitution but freedom to continue to prevent others from publishing is not. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, One Man’s Stand For Freedom, 1963.






52. Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the First Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, 1961.






53. The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political “mistakes” without being subjected to governmental penalties. HUGH L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, 1959.






54. An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, 1964.






55. It is my belief that there are “absolutes” in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be “absolutes.” HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S Supreme Court Justice, 1962.






56. The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional. HUGO L. BLACK (1886-1971), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, New York Times, 26 February 1971.






57. By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech. HARRY A. BLACKMUN (1908-1999), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Roe v. Wade, 1973.






58. It is better ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE (1723-1780), Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-69.






59. The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE (1723-1780), Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-69.






60. Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities. ALAN BLOOM (1930-1992), The Closing of the American Mind, 1987.






61. In the whole history of law and order, the biggest step was taken by primitive man when...the tribe sat in a circle and allowed only one man to speak at a time. An accused who is shouted down has no rights whatever. CURTIS BOK, Saturday Review, 13 February 1954.






62. No more fatuous chimera every infested the brain that that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open , and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right. WILLIAM E. BORAH (1865-1940), U. S. Senator, 1917.






63. Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen. WILLIAM E. BORAH (1865-1940), U. S. Senator, Remarks to the Senate, 19 April 1917.






64. Without free speech no search for truth is possible…no discovery of truth is useful. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but they delay slays the life of the people. CHARLES BRADLAUGH (1833-1891), Speech, 1890.






65. If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy should have it as the truest servitor of human kind. CHARLES BRADLAUGH (1833-1891), Speech, 1881.






66. Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Whitney v. California, 1927.






67. No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Whitney v. California, 1927.






68. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Whitney v. California, 1927.






69. The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Schaefer v. U. S., 1920.






70. The right to be alone - the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Olmstead v. United States, 1928.






71. At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Burdeau v. McDowell, 1921.






72. Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties… They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Whitney v. California, 1927.






73. To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retribution. LOUIS B. BRANDEIS (1856-1941), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, 1912.






74. All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment]. WILLIAM J. BRENNAN (1906-1997), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Roth v. U.S., 1957.






75. Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure. KINGMAN BREWSTER (1919-1988), President, Yale University, Speech, 11 April 1964.






76. There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. J. BRONOWSKI (1908-1974), The Ascent of Man, 1973.






77. Free speech is about as good a cause as the world has ever known. But it…gets shoved aside in favor of things which at a given moment more vital…everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground. HEYWOOD BROUN (1888-1939), New York World, 23 October 1926.






78. The censor believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all, it is life with which he quarrels. HEYWOOD BROUN (1888-1939), in The Fifty Year Decline of Hollywood (E. Goodman), 1961.






79. The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878), New York Evening Post, 18 November 1837.






80. Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions. JAMES BRYCE (1838-1922), The American Commonwealth, 1888.






81. None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free. PEARL S. BUCK (1892-1973), What America Means To Me, 1943.






82. Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. EDWARD GEORGE BULWER-LYTTON (1803-1873).






83. Judges…rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to the pressures of the times. WARREN E. BURGER, Chief Justice, U. S. Supreme Court, Christian Science Monitor, 11 February 1987.






84. Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress. FRANK GELETT BURGESS (1866-1951).






85. People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous... EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), Letter to the Hon. C. J. Fox, October 8, 1777.






86. The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 3 April 1777.






87. Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 3 April 1777.






88. Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), Speech, House of Commons, 1773.






89. The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary it is that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally. SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902), Notebooks, 1912.






90. Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates; The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud and vain. SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902).

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