A Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

Benjamin Franklin

Quote Topics

Begin Liberty Must Nation Overthrow Speech Whoever Would

Quote Author

Benjamin Franklin
American - Politician
January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.

Benjamin Franklin

Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.

John Quincy Adams

As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.

Gertrude Himmelfarb

If I stop today at a protest and I read a speech, it is a speech that remains in that moment, and whoever captures it does, and whoever doesn't, doesn't, and just keeps walking. It is very sterile, and it can seem even inaccessible and boring for a community.

Bocafloja

'Negative liberty' is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything - like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.

Marvin Ammori

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

Frederick Douglass

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

Montesquieu

We seek not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow those who would prevert it.

Abraham Lincoln

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.

Woodrow Wilson

Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth. Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail. Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost. America, in the assembly of nations, has uniformly spoken among them the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights.

John Quincy Adams

While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.

John Quincy Adams

The nation as such is not a large subject that has needs, that works, practices economy, and consumes. . . . Thus the phenomena of “national economy” . . . are, rather, the results of all the innumerable individual economic efforts in the nation and . . . must also be theoretically interpreted in this light. . . .Whoever wants to understand theoretically the phenomena of “national economy” . . . must for this reason attempt to go back to their true elements, to the singular economies in the nation, and to investigate the laws by which the former are built up from the latter.

Ralph Raico

To me, freedom of speech and debate are necessary inputs in solving any of our nation's problems, from homelessness and economic inequality to banking, the environment, and national security. Freedom of speech is what Larry Lessig would call a 'root' issue; working on free speech is striking at a root issue.

Marvin Ammori

Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

Sophocles

How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak?