If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone – except God.

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

‚Fahrenheit 451‘ postulates a lot of things I didn’t want to have happen.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

The press is the enemy.

Whether we are New Dealer, Old Dealer, Liberty Leaguer or Red, whether we agree or not, we still have the right to think and speak how we feel.

Obscenity comes from grime.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

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?

Every burned book enlightens the world.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

It is a fundamental principle of criminal law that an imputed offense must correspond exactly to the type of crime described by law. If no law applies exactly to the point in question, then there is no offense.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn’t. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

I consider myself as a free spokesman for the people.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.

You can’t score if you’re turning it over. It’s like a punt. If you go out and you punt 12 times, you’re not scoring points. That’s not good. So, when you turn the ball over and throw interceptions, you’re giving the other team more opportunities and your team less opportunities.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Bobby Knight told me this: ‚There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.‘ In other words a good offense wins.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

I’ve analyzed the best I can… and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

There’s no such thing as going to a soapbox and saying, ‚The government’s corrupt,‘ and not having the intelligence service see your face. In the digital world, that can be done.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

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.

Beautiful speech doesn’t need protection, it’s ugly speech that needs protection. We have these cultural norms that allow people to say really ugly things. You don’t have to invite them to your dinner party, but you should let them say it.

There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord.

God’s first line of defense – and offense – for every situation is prayer.

There are really two core principles at play here. There’s giving people a voice so that people can express their opinions. Then, there’s keeping the community safe, which I think is really important. We’re not gonna let people plan violence or attack each other or do bad things.

Everyone does things differently on offense. Everyone’s goal is to score points.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.