Lord Byron Quotes

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.

Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter.

Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.

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.

He who dares not reason, is a slave.

Suppressing ideas never makes them go away.

Those who want to burn books are either afraid of the ideas contained within the covers or they haven't the courage to stand up for the views which they themselves profess to hold.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

It is pretty safe to assume that any given censor is a fool. The very fact that he is a censor indicates that.

What should we think of a Southern city or state that forbade a film of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ to be presented?

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

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.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

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.

I will never understand people who think that the way to show their righteous opposition to sexual freedom is to write letters full of filthy words.

Reason is the tool men use to determine if their statements about reality are valid: there is no other. Those who do not or cannot reason are little better than slaves because their lives are controlled by the ideas of other men, ideas they have not examined.

The public use of a man's reason must be free at all times…. But I hear people clamor on all sides: Don't argue! The military officer says: Don't argue, drill! The tax collector: Don't argue, pay! The minister: Don't argue, believe!

Christianity is the enemy of liberty and of civilization. It has kept mankind in chains.