Freedom for the Thought That We Hate Quotes

“there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“Men feared witches and burnt women.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“Like religion, patriotism is a virtue so indispensable and exalted, its excesses pass with little censure. But when . . . it descends to fanaticism, it is of the reprehensible quality of the religion that incited the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the tortures of the Inquisition, the fires of Smithfield, the scaffolds of Salem, and is equally cruel and murderous. In its name, as in that of Liberty, what crimes have been committed! In every age it, too, furnishes its heresy hunters and its witch burners, and it, too, is a favorite mask for hypocrisy, assuming a virtue which it haveth not.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“At the time the First Amendment was adopted, as today, there were those unscrupulous enough and skillful enough to use the deliberate or reckless falsehood as an effective political tool. . . . That speech is used as a tool for political ends does not automatically bring it under the protective mantle of the Constitution. For the use of the known lie as a tool is at once at odds with the premises of democratic government and with the orderly manner in which economic, social or political change is to be effected.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“When we are dealing with words that also are a constituent act, like the Constitution of the United States, we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. . . . The case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate;”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

“I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required”
― Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment