Rod Serling Quotes

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Every person may freely speak, write, and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty; and in all trials for libel, both civil and criminal, the truth, when published with good motives and for justifiable ends, shall be a sufficient defense

Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power…

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.

I think Assange has been very courageous. I've also defended Bradley Manning. I think they've been tremendously courageous in telling the truth, and the public has the right to the truth.

To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.

Literature is doomed if liberty of thought perishes.

When I started to write, it was the '70s, and throughout that decade, we didn't have any problems with book challenges or censorship.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Artists speak the truth to the public without fear of retribution or damage to their careers.

I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized.

Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thought crime becomes a reality.

I want to tell stories powerful people don't want you to tell. It's not worth getting out of bed otherwise.

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.

By limiting or denying freedom of speech and expression, we take away a lot of potential. We take away thoughts and ideas before they even have the opportunity to hatch. We build a world around negatives - you can't say, think, or do this or that.

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

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

So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech.

Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

The long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of governmetn ...

If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that the state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we are sure, stifling would be an evil still.

... the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men .... More than if some enemy at sea should stop up all our havens and ports, it [licensing] hinders and retards importation of our richest Merchandise, Truth.

This reporter approaches the matter with rather fresh memories of friends in Austria, Germany and Italy who either died or went into exile because they refused to admit the right of their government to determine what they should say, read, write or think…. Movies should be judged by what appears on the screen, newspapers by what appears in print and radio by what comes out of the loudspeaker. The personal beliefs of the individuals involved would not seem to be a legitimate field of inquiry. When bankers, or oil or railroad men are hauled before a congressional committee, it is not customary to question them about their beliefs.