[Freedom of speech] isn't something somebody else gives you. That's something you give to yourself.
Freedom Quotes
Presidents are over-represented here. George W. Bush has the most entries, ahead of Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy, which says more about how often presidents talk about freedom than about how well they put it. The better writing tends to be elsewhere: Madison in the Federalist Papers (1787), Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition (1958), Dalí in his diary.
Two of the most repeated freedom quotes are flagged. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is credited to Voltaire. Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote it in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), as a summary of his views. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is credited to Jefferson, but nobody has found it in his writings. The closest early version is by John Philpot Curran, in a speech of 1790.
... as a much-banned author, I'm interested in freedom of speech.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
If you're not ready to die for it, take the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.