This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends." - Mary Catherwood, fully Mary Hartwell Catherwood
"Freedom of speech and expression, and the right of all men to disseminate ideas, popular or unpopular, are fundamental to ordered liberty. Government has not power or right to control men’s minds, thoughts and expressions… If the First Amendment protects the freedom to express ideas, it necessarily follows that it must protect the freedom to generate ideas. Without the latter protection, the former is meaningless." -
"This middle path… is the noble path, namely: right views, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right meditation… Which leads to insights, leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to perfect enlightenment, to Nirvana." - Mahavagga of the Vinaya Texts NULL
"There are seven marks of a wise man. The wise man does not speak before him who is greater than he in wisdom; and does not break in upon the speech of his fellow; he is not hasty to answer; he questions according to the subject matter; and answers to the point; he speaks upon the first thing first, and the last; regarding that which he has not understood he says, I do not understand it, and he acknowledges the truth." - Mishnah or The Mishnah NULL
"Silence is also speech." - Fulfulde Proverb
"This is the Noble Eightfold Path: right views, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration." - Samyutta Nikaya "Connected Discourses" or "Kindred Sayings" NULL
"Don’t judge. Just hear what the person has to say. Thoughtfully consider its meaning for him. When you attend to another’s speech in this way, you may come to recognize the miracle of words. This is sacred listening. To such an ear, story, in all of its forms, is transformed into a melodious language. When the listener is this receptive, both he and the teller are elevated to a new realm of communication. This is the foundation of building trust and safety in any relationship." - Richard “Rick” Stone
"Real listening is the creation of a sacred space in which another’s words are contained and transformed into hallowed speech. Like remembering, this form of listening is also intentional." - Richard “Rick” Stone
"Speech is; not what one should desire to understand. One should know the speaker." - Kaushitaki Upanishad
"The speech of created beings is with sounds. The word of God is silence. God’s secret world of love can be nothing else but silence." - Simone Weil
"What need there is to be reserved in speech and temper all our thoughts with charity." - William Wordsworth
"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility." - Bahai’ Prayer NULL
"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people." - Charles Bradlaugh
"This is a time for a loud voice, open speech, and fearless thinking. I rejoice that I live in such a splendidly disturbing time." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"Uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech, unperiphrastic, bombastiloquent." - Aristophanes NULL
"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt." - Bergen Baldwin Evans
"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt." - Bergen Baldwin Evans
"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think." - Bergen Baldwin Evans
"When a man lacks discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims. Those who lack discrimination may quote the letter of the scripture; but they are really denying its inner truth. They are full of worldly desires and hungry for the rewards of heaven. They use beautiful figures of speech; they teach elaborate rituals, which are supposed to obtain pleasure and power for those who practice them. But, actually, they understand nothing except the law of Karma that chains men to rebirth. Those whose discrimination is stolen away by such talk grow deeply attached to pleasure and power. And so they are unable to develop that one-pointed concentration of the will, which leads a man to absorption in God." - Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
"No one can deny that much of our modern advertising is essentially dishonest; and it can be maintained that to lie freely and all the time for private profit is not to abuse the right of free speech, whether it is a violation of the law or not. But again the practical question is, how much lying for private profit is to be permitted by law?" - Carl Lotus Becker
"Speech is the gift of all, but thought of few." - Cato the Elder, Marcus Porius Cato, aka Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient) NULL
"A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Artful speech and insinuating looks rarely accompany true virtue." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Of what value is smartness of speech? Opposing a man with the mouth excites anger." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then your low words will be charged with dynamite." - Elbert Green Hubbard
"Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good order." - Francis Bacon
"Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first freedom is speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world-terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world-terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
"We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in their own way everywhere in the world. The third freedom is from want everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear everywhere in the world." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
"More have repented speech than silence." - George Herbert
"If any hesitate in his Words, help him not, nor Prompt him without [being asked]. Interrupt him not, nor Answer him till his Speech is ended." - George Washington
"Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul." - Hannah More
"Speech is fractional, silence is integral." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who demand special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war." - Henry Steele Commager
"The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them." - Henry Steele Commager
"Three Silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear; and there is damnation in the things that wicked men love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the elements of disease, and bring new elements of health. And where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast." - Henry Ward Beecher
"We should remember that the social utility of free speech is in giving us the informational base from which we can then make social choices. To refrain from making social choices is to say that beyond the issue of free speech we have no substantive values which we will express in action. If we do not discriminate in the actions we support or oppose, we cannot rectify the terrible injustices of the present world." - Howard Zinn
"Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire uttered and expressed, the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye, when none but God are near. Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, prayer, the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high." - James Montgomery
"After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world." - Jean Baptiste Lacordaire, fully Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
"The "morphogenic" relationship of eternity to time is not to be thought of as sequential. Moreover, eternity being by definition outside or beyond temporality, transcendent of all categories, whether of virtue or of reason (being and nonbeing, unity and multiplicity, love and justice, forgiveness and wrath), the term and concept "God" is itself but a metaphor of the unknowing mind, connotative, not only beyond itself, but beyond thought... metaphors are equivalent as alternative signs of the high mystical experience of an absorption of mortal appearance in immortal being; for which another historical figure of speech is the "End of the World."" - Joseph Campbell
"Great truth that transcends Nature does not pass from one being to another by way of human speech. Truth chooses Silence to convey her meaning to loving souls." - Kahlil Gibran