Ashton Kutcher Quotes

Here's a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

We can self-censor ourselves for various reasons, but we can't live in a world where some person or some group decides what's offensive and what's not.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

You have no right to erect your toll gate upon the highways of thought.

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

There is social intimidation by the self-appointed brigades of the thought police… they exist in every society, whether they are of the religious, nationalistic or atheistic variety. Dogmatists, who are convinced that they know better, that only the way they think is acceptable and who would deprive others of their right to hear differing and discordant voices.. They try to achieve this by either silencing the author or scaring away the public.

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder “censorship,” we call it “concern for commercial viability.”

I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber.

Political correctness kills discussion.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.

Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.

Some people still believe you should just fall in line with what's going on - and that's scary. It makes a mockery of freedom of speech.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

The freedom to express yourself without fear - that perhaps is something we in the U.S. take for granted. It's almost inconceivable to think we would be afraid to express our opinions or thoughts, but that's not true for all parts of the world now, and certainly not before World War II.

The policy of repression of ideas cannot work and has never worked.

Sasha, aren’t you a good communist? How can you allow so much ideological freedom? Do something!.

Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even specially, 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 the awareness of other possibilities.

Only the suppressed word is dangerous.

Ideas are dangerous; and the traffic in them has been the concern of all dictators.

Suppressing ideas never makes them go away.