Jeannette Rankin Quotes

I can think that you are mistaken, but I have to be ready to give my life to maintain your right to make mistakes. I have to, though, have the right to say that you're mistaken. This is the principal of the liberal society.

We are a country that does better when we do debate and air our differences.

The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

In fact, I would defend to the death their right to express a different point of view.

What the nation's built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can't discuss anything. If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized. If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

I always tell my students: I don't care which side you're on. I respect you too much to try to persuade you in 120 minutes a week, much less lure you into pretending that you agree with me. All I want is for you to own this democracy, to see yours, to have a stake in it.

Americans should not have to wonder if their government is actively looking to subvert them or their political views. We live in a nation where respect for differing beliefs and a vibrant political discourse play an important role in shaping our government.

In an open society, no idea can be above scrutiny, just as no people should be beneath dignity.

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

Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has the right to be wrong in his facts.

A free society means that you might have to put up with a lot of things you despise.

By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think and the right to think wrong.

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

I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as a self-governing people to hear everything relevant

If a book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides if we choose.

The doctrine of toleration requires a positive as well as a negative statement. It is not only wrong to burn a man on account of his creed, but it is right to encourage the open avowal and defense of every opinion sincerely maintained. Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.

Nations should live in an atmosphere of self-criticism because it is healthy, but always with one heart and one mind.

There is no right in the world not to be offended. That right simply doesn’t exist. In a free society, an open society, people have strong opinions, and these opinions very often clash. In a democracy, we have to learn to deal with this.

The American tradition rests on pillars of self-questioning, self-actualization, and disagreement.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.